In 1955, Barry Jones was convicted of murdering Rachel Gray, his girlfriend's 4-year-old daughter, and was sentenced to death row. Over the years, new medical evidence was found and Mr. Jones attempted to use it and fight for his innocence. During Jones's trial in 1995, where he was sentenced to death row, it was found his lawyer failed to do even the most basic investigation necessary to assess the reliability of the evidence against him (Death Penalty Information Center). This brought the attention of the Arizona Attorney General who acknowledged that Mr. Jones did not receive a fair trial and was wrongfully convicted of capital murder as well as wrongfully sentenced to death in Arizona (Arizona Federal Public Defender). When the case entered …show more content…
If the defendant could prove that they received “ineffective assistance of counsel both at trial and during state-level appeals, and therefore they never had competent counsel to raise trial-level claims,” they could raise those claims for the first time during federal habeas review (Oyez). Jones presented the evidence that neighboring boys had hit Rachel in the stomach with a metal bar a day or two before her death. It was believed that this was what caused Rachel Gray’s internal bleeding and it was not Barry Jones who was at fault for the death of the 4-year-old. The reason for Jones not necessarily being at fault is because he admitted when the 4-year-old became extremely ill, and instead of taking her to the hospital, Jones was paying more attention to the drugs he was doing (Santa Cruz and Torres, 2023). Jones, having admitted he failed to seek medical attention for his girlfriend's daughter, weakened his credibility and portrayed him as neglectful, also causing him to be possibly seen as not fully innocent regarding the case. The jury's decision was a 6-3 ruling for Shinn, but the U.S. Supreme Court decided that federal judges can’t determine people's guilt for state crimes, even if there is evidence proving their