On the night of May 4th, 1979, there was a terrible crime committed in Forrest County, Mississippi. The home of Eva Patterson was broken into where a man raped and murdered her all in front of her four-year-old son. This is a crime that seriously affects a community. The public will want answers, and the police will be eager to make an arrest. In brutal cases like this, the police will look quickly for suspects and often take an alternative, unethical approaches to finding the culprit. Here the police ended up with three prime suspects, Phillip Bivens, Larry Ruffin, and Bobby Ray Dixon.
The first arrest came days after the crime. They brought in Larry Ruffin and questioned him harshly and extensively. The police using pressure and physical force were able to get enough out of Ruffin to support that he killed Patterson. Despite him contradicting himself continuously in his multiple interviews, Ruffin was set to go to trial. Before his trial he claimed his innocence, saying the officers doing the interviews influenced him.
Right before the trial, the police brought in Bobby Ray Dixon because he stayed at a half-way house with Ruffin before the crime. Again influenced by law enforcement, Dixon said Ruffin murdered Patterson, and himself along with Phillip Bivens aided in the crime. This led to Bivens being brought in for questioning where he was then swarmed with several threats. The police used the possibility of the death penalty to control Bivens and eventually got him to confess.
Despite the inconsistencies in their stories, they sentenced each man to life in prison. There are countless issues with this case that support the innocence of these men. First Patterson’s son, the singular witness, said there was one man in the house that attacked his mother. If the one witness saw one man, then why are three men being convicted? Next, there are extreme holes in each mans confessions. The police officers that conducted the interviews acted in dishonorable manners, forcing confessions. If someone’s life is being threatened with false accusations, especially three African-American Men in Mississippi they are going to do what they can to survive. It’s law enforcements job to solve the crime, but forcing a narrative on someone that doesn’t know what happened is a problem that needs to stop. This behavior isn’t only apparent in this case, it’s a real problem that needs to change and law enforcement that partakes in this behavior need to face the consequences of their actions.
For Phillip Bivens, Larry Ruffin, and Bobby Ray Dixon, their best hope lied in the hands of DNA analysis. Ruffin died in 2002, but his family still sought to clear his name. The Innocence project of New Orleans accepted an application from Dixon and ended up representing Dixon, Bivens, and the family of Larry Ruffin. They received the go ahead to get semen tested from the crime scene. The DNA was put in the FBI CODIS database, and a match occurred with Andrew Harris, a convicted rapist from around the same area as the crime occurred. The three men were eventually exonerated in December 2010, when a jury viewed the evidence and decided on their innocence.
Phillip Bivens Bobby Ray Dixon Larry Ruffin
Work Cited:
“The Cases – Phillip Bivens.” Innocence Project, 27 July 2016, www.innocenceproject.org/cases/phillip-bivens/.
Robertson, Campbell. “30 Years Later, Freedom in a Case With Tragedy for All Involved.” The New York Times, The New York Times Company, 17 Sept. 2010, www.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/us/17exonerate.html?auth=login-googl
It is absolutely heart breaking to read about cases such as this. That law enforcement has such incredible power over a person’s life and often abuses that power is horrible. This case, the central park 5 case and so many others show how bias not only law enforcement can be but also the jury and the judge within the judicial system itself; there are SO many cases similar to this one and most of them were either executed, died in prison or are still in prison serving sentences for crimes they did not commit.
Hi,
There has always been bias in the world and where it usually is so evident that there is bias is in life threatening events such as this one. Law enforcement does have a great responsibility because they are dealing with life or death situations. Unfortunately, with great responsibility comes greater room for mistakes and incidents. Sometimes with so much “power” , it can all go to someone’s head as in anyone position if they had that amount of “power”. There are situations when someone then abuses the power and thus jeopardizes the well being of others and can lead to death. I thought. it was very interesting to read about this case since sometimes people aren’t taught this and thus have no knowledge of it.
This was so incredibly disappointing to read; the fact that this still happens is discouraging and makes me feel very disheartened. Law enforcement wields such an enormous amount of power and that is unacceptable. The fact that these men served time in prison for a crime that they did not commit is horrendous, even more so the fact that one of them died while in jail for something that he did not do. This also reminds me of the Central Park 5 case where police officers ended up pinning those boys against each other and they all unlawfully went to jail. Racial bias causes so many injustices within our government/judiciary system and it needs to stop. Even more saddening is that this is not a very well known crime, meaning that this type of thing can happen. Great post!
This and the central park 5 case piss me off so much. Law enforcement is so racially biased it’s unreal, and so is the justice system. If you’re not white you’re basically screwed, no matter whether or not you actually committed a crime. It’s wonderful that they were finally exonerated, but it angers me that it took so long to do so and that the three men were placed in that situation to begin with. Like ves5119 said, the amount of power that law enforcement wields is far too much, and is more often than not abused- this is a huge problem within our society.