After 23 Years on Death Row, Barry Jones Sees His Conviction Overturned: Arizona Must Retry or Release Him Immediately – The Intercept
That the evidence no longer supported Jones’s conviction was clear long before the hearing took place, however. In a letter to Jones’s attorneys last year, the attorney general’s office wrote that the current Pima County medical examiner “did not dispute the conclusions of your experts.” These experts have long argued that Rachel’s injuries predated the window presented by the state. Renowned pediatric pathologist Janice Ophoven, who first looked at the case in 2002, has insisted for years that Arizona’s theory of the crime was impossible. At the evidentiary hearing, Ophoven explained how Rachel’s abdominal injury developed over time, with the severity of her illness unclear until it was too late.
Photo courtesy of Pima County Sheriff’s Office.
