HENRY LEE HUNT

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Henry Lee Hunt, a Native American from Robeson County , North Carolina , was executed on September 12, 2003, for the 1984 murders of Jackie Ransom and Larry Jones — murders that the facts show he likely did not commit. To date, the State has not explained the following:

Hunt, who consistently asserted his innocence, passed two lie detector tests regarding the murders, both administered by a respected professional.

Hunt’s alleged co-conspirator, Elwell Barnes, later stated in an affidavit that he, his brother A.R. Barnes and others — but not Hunt — committed both murders, and that Hunt had nothing to do with either murder.

Both the State Bureau of Investigation and the Lumberton Police Department destroyed case records that may well have backed Hunt’s claim of innocence — in the latter case, after Hunt’s appeals lawyers filed a request for law-enforcement files. Neither of the agencies has explained the admitted destruction.

Prosecutors withheld crucial information from the defense at trial that would have seriously damaged its case against Hunt. In the weeks leading to Hunt’s execution, the state refused to turn over all of the evidence in its possession despite repeated requests.

Almost everyone who testified for the prosecution was either directly involved in the murders or had other reasons to deflect blame onto Hunt. Rogers Locklear, who helped conceive the plot to kill Jackie Ransom for insurance money, pled guilty to conspiracy and served less than five years in prison. A.R. Barnes, who was hired to kill Mr. Ransom, was arrested after the murder, failed a polygraph examination and confessed. The confession was consistent with facts about the killing that he could not easily have known unless he had committed it. A.R. Barnes then recanted and pinned the murder on Elwell Barnes and Henry Hunt. After testifying against Hunt, A.R. Barnes was allowed to plead guilty to conspiracy and served less than eight years in prison.

In some cases the testimony against Hunt was plainly false. Jerome Ratley, an admitted participant in the murder of Larry Jones who was presented by prosecutors as the only alleged eyewitness, described details that experts say cannot be reconciled with the physical evidence in the case. Ratley was not charged with any crime.

No physical evidence ties Hunt to either crime. There was trial testimony that he gave the gun used in the two murders to his son-in-law for safekeeping. That testimony, which could have been and would now be refuted, was not credible for a variety of reasons, most notably that the witness was facing prison for a parole violation and was subject to pressure from law enforcement authorities. After he testified against Mr. Hunt, the charge was dropped.

The State claimed at trial that it had one piece of physical evidence implicating Hunt: a cigarette butt found at the scene of the Jones murder. At Hunt’s request a DNA test was done on the butt; the State crime lab’s analysis just before Hunt’s execution was inconclusive. Hunt requested further testing, but was it was denied. Cursory review by another forensic lab indicated the DNA likely did not match Hunt.

In an effort to present physical evidence to the jury, prosecutors introduced a shovel they claimed Hunt had allegedly used to bury one of the victims; the jury never learned that the soil found on the shovel did not match the soil in which the victim had been buried and therefore could not have been used as the State claimed.

Hunt’s trial lawyers put on none of the evidence that tended to show innocence, in part because they did not know the evidence existed.