The story that I chose to deal with wrongful conviction is an article from cbs.com, “Wrongfully Convicted by an Inaccurate Eyewitness”. This story involves Julius Earl Ruffin, male black, who was 29 years old at the time of his conviction. On May 3, 1982, in a Norfolk, Virginia Circuit Court, the 29-year-old was convicted of a rape that he did not commit and was sentenced to five life sentences. The case rested solely on the testimony of the victim, Ann Meng, a young mother of three who confidently pointed to Ruffin as her assailant. Julius Earl Ruffin did 21 years, before his conviction was overturned, due to DNA evidence in 2003. Some of the procedural justice elements that were problematic were, they convicted Julius Earl Ruffin on her eyewitness testimony only. …show more content…
The victim Ann Meng, also picked Julius Earl Ruffin from a line-up , just from voice recognition. But, to make matters worse, she gave the police a whole different physical description of her attacker,that didn’t match up to Julius Earl Ruffin. And in the pre-DNA era, the best available science said Ruffin was a B secretor, which means he had type B blood that could be determined through his semen—as was true for roughly 8 percent of the male population, including the attacker. After three jury trials, with the first two trials ending in mistrials, due to racial differences of seven blacks and five whites jury panels. The third jury trial ended in a conviction, mainly because they had an all white jury