A man sent to prison for robbery successfully appealed his conviction, arguing that fingerprint evidence alone was not enough to prove that he committed the crime, reported The Legal Intelligencer.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on
Tuesday ruled in favor of defendant Jamar Travillion, who was sentenced to 10
to 20 years in prison for robbery in 2006. While successful in overturning his
robbery conviction, Travillion will remain incarcerated because of a separate
sentence of life without parole for second-degree murder.
Travillion was accused of robbing the Rainbow
Apparel store in Pittsburgh, according to Third Circuit Judge Luis
Restrepo’s Dec. 15 opinion. The store’s owner, Deborah Diodati,
testified that a man with a turtleneck around his face and a stocking covering
his head forced his way into the store and demanded money. She obliged, handing
over approximately $6,000 from the store’s safe. In the process of the robbery,
the suspect dropped a manila folder containing papers he’d carried into the
store.
A police investigation found Travillion’s
fingerprints on the folder but nowhere else in the store, including an office
door that Diodati said was torn from its hinges by the robber.
Additionally, Diodati was unable to identify the suspect more specifically than
noting his clothing, race and dialect.
Because of that, Restrepo said, the court concluded
the evidence was insufficient to convict Travillion of robbery.
“Evidence that Travillion’s fingerprints were found
on the easily movable manila folder and a paper inside the folder carried into
the store by the robber and a witness’ description of the robber that does not
match Travillion but doesn’t necessarily exclude him is not sufficient evidence
for a rational trier of fact to place Travillion at the scene of the crime at
the time the crime was committed beyond a reasonable doubt,” Restrepo said.
The judge added that the evidence did nothing to
place Travillion at the store during the time of the robbery.
“There was no evidence that the folder and paper
were unavailable to Travillion prior to the robbery, no evidence as to the age
of the prints, and no evidence as to how long the prints could remain on the
folder and paper after their impression,” Restrepo said.
He added, “In addition to the absence of evidence
regarding when Travillion’s fingerprints on the easily movable folder and paper
were impressed, there was a lack of sufficient additional incriminating
evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, so as to allow a rational juror to find
guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Although there is evidence that Travillion
touched the folder at some indefinite time with his left hand, and there is
evidence that the robber carried the folder at the time of the crime in his
left hand, there is not sufficiently incriminating evidence that Travillion was
the perpetrator holding the folder at the time of the crime.”
The Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office
declined to comment.
Travillion’s attorney, Kimberly Brunson of the
Federal Public Defender’s Office for Western Pennsylvania, said she thought the
Third Circuit “got it right.”
“Mr. Travillion was convicted and sentenced to 10 to
20 years imprisonment without sufficient evidence to support the jury’s
verdict,” Brunson said. “This decision is a victory for every citizen who
stands accused of a crime because it affirms the prosecution’s duty to provide
proof beyond a reasonable doubt as to every element.”
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