BSO settles lawsuit with family of man exonerated by DNA

7-21-2013 Florida:

Convicted of rape, exonerated by DNA; family settles BSO lawsuit

Frank Lee Smith died of cancer on death row, just months before DNA exonerated him of raping and murdering an 8-year-old girl in Fort Lauderdale. Now, more than 13 years later, his family's civil lawsuit against the Broward Sheriff's Office and two detectives accused of framing him has finally been settled.

Smith's death made him a national symbol because it was the first case in the U.S. that scientifically proved an innocent man had died in prison for a crime he didn't commit.

But the financial settlement reached with the Sheriff's Office — on behalf of the agency and retired detectives Richard Scheff and Philip Amabile — is much less than the millions awarded in Broward's other notorious wrongful conviction cases.

The civil suit was recently settled for just $340,000 — including attorney fees and legal costs, lawyers Michael Wrubel and James Green told the Sun Sentinel. They filed the lawsuit on behalf of Smith's closest surviving relative, his half-sister Virginia Smith, of Sunrise.

Larry Ruffin died in prison but was innocent

11-7-2010 Mississippi:

From The Innocence Project: Larry Ruffin

Larry Ruffin narrowly avoided the death penalty and served more than two decades in Mississippi prisons for a murder and rape he didn’t commit and died in a prison accident before he could be exonerated. Eight years after his death, DNA testing obtained by Innocence Project New Orleans would officially clear his name.

Ruffin was wrongfully convicted of raping and killing a woman in her Forrest County, Mississippi, home on May 4, 1979. The only witness was the victim’s 4-year-old son, who consistently described seeing one man raping and killing his mother. Ruffin was arrested first for the crime. Two other men, Phillip Bivens and Bobby Ray Dixon, were arrested in the case 18 months later.

The three men gave confessions to police, under the threat of the death penalty. Their confessions were inconsistent with each other and in places, factually inaccurate. Dixon and Bivens pled guilty and testified at Ruffin’s trial in exchange for life sentences. Dixon recanted his earlier testimony and confession implicating Ruffin while on the stand at Ruffin’s trial. Ruffin was convicted by a jury and sentenced to life in prison after a hung jury prevented a death sentence.

Innocence Project New Orleans (IPNO) and co-counsel Rob McDuff — lawyers for Dixon, Bivens and the Ruffin family — obtained DNA testing with the consent of the Forrest County district attorney in June 2010. Testing was performed on semen left on the victim’s body by the perpetrator and the DNA profile was run through the FBI’s DNA database. The profile from the crime scene excluded all three of the men convicted and implicated another man who was convicted of raping another woman in her home in the same county two years later.

Based on the results, IPNO and McDuff filed motions calling for the three men’s convictions to be dismissed and for their immediate exoneration. Dixon, who has suffered from seizures his entire life, was diagnosed with lung cancer that spread to his brain. He was released on medical parole in August 2010.

In September, Forrest County Circuit Judge Bob Helfrich threw out the convictions of Dixon and Bivens and ordered evidence be presented to a grand jury on the alleged real perpetrator. Because Ruffin had passed away in 2002, his conviction could not be overturned through regular post-conviction procedures. However, on December 14, 2010, he, along with Bivens and Dixon, were officially exonerated when a Forrest County Grand Jury that heard all of the evidence declined to indict the three men.

Dixon passed away on November 7, 2010 while awaiting his complete exoneration.

Mississippi Man Dies Months After DNA Proved Innocence

11-9-2010 Mississippi:

From the Innocence Project: Bobby Ray Dixon

Less than two months after being cleared of a rape he did not commit, Bobby Ray Dixon has died. Dixon along with Phillip Bivens and Larry Ruffin were wrongfully convicted of a 1979 rape and murder and spent more than thirty years behind bars before DNA evidence proved their innocence.

The Daily Comet reported that Dixon died Sunday after suffering from lung and brain cancer. He was 53 years old. Dixon’s brother Jerry Dixon was happy his brother lived long enough to be cleared of the crimes.

"He knew his name was cleared before he left. He wanted to be baptized again, and I thank God he got to do that," Jerry Dixon said Tuesday. "He wanted to ride a bicycle and he got to do that. He had been locked up for 32 years."

Dixon was already out on medical release due to his cancer diagnosis when news of his actual innocence was announced on September 16. Ruffin died in prison in 2002 before seeing his name cleared.

Bivens and Dixon falsely confessed to the crime after a police interrogation and allegedly implicated another man Ruffin as the rapist. They pled guilty to the crime, but would soon recant, saying they had been beaten and forced to implicate Ruffin. DNA tests obtained by the Innocence Project New Orleans, a member of the Innocence Network, pointed to the involvement of another man, who is in prison for a separate rape.

Jerry Dixon said funeral services will be held Saturday at 2 p.m. at New Zion Baptist Church in Jones County, Mississippi.

Innocent man who died in prison gets marker

2-6-2012 Texas:

FORT WORTH, TX -- Hundreds gathered to unveil a historical marker at the grave of a man who died in prison but was later cleared by DNA testing of the crime that sent him there.

U.S. Army veteran and Texas Tech University student Tim Cole was convicted of the 1985 rape of a fellow student. He always maintained his innocence, even though admitting to the crime could have earned him parole.

In 1999, at 39, Cole died in prison of asthma complications. In 2008, DNA tests cleared him and implicated convicted rapist Jerry Wayne Johnson, who had confessed in letters to court officials dating to 1995.