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A Florida man exonerated of rape and murder in 1983 after 37 years in prison is continuing his wrongful conviction and original death sentence, in which a disproved bite mark was crucial evidence.
Robert DuBoise, 56, was released in August last year after long-standing untested DNA evidence from a rape kit proved he was innocent of the rape and murder of Barbara Grams, 19 years old in Tampa.
Grams was attacked and beaten to death on her way home from work in a restaurant on August 19, 1983. No one else has been arrested for her murder.
In the federal lawsuit filed this week, DuBoise’s attorneys name the city of Tampa, four police investigators and a forensic dentist who testified that a bite mark on Grams’s cheek was from DuBoise as defendants – based on a defective beeswax mold.
“The only physical evidence implicating Mr. DuBoise was fabricated ‘bite mark’ evidence that allegedly matched Mr. DuBoise with an injury to the victim’s body. In fact, the victim’s injury was not a human bite mark at all, ”Human Rights Center attorney Daniel Marshall wrote in the lawsuit.
Dentist Dr Richard Souviron gained notoriety as an expert after testifying at the murder trial of serial killer Ted Bundy that one of his victims in Florida had a bite mark that matched his teeth.
Souviron, whose firm is in Coral Gables, Fla., Did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment on the DuBoise case on Saturday.
DuBoise’s lawsuit quotes a speech given to a police chief in which Souviron said: “If you tell me that this is the guy who did it, I will go to court and say that this is the guy who did it. did it. “
Lawsuit says beeswax was not an accepted method of identifying tooth marks in murder cases and was only used “because another officer in the Tampa Police Department operated a honey business next door ”.
Further, the lawsuit argues that investigators conspired with prison informants to falsely implicate DuBoise and were guilty of misconduct. DuBoise never confessed and maintained his innocence throughout, his lawyers said.
The lawsuit, first reported by the Tampa Bay Times, seeks unspecified damages.
DuBoise supporters demanded $ 1.85 million in compensation from the state legislature, but this bill went nowhere.
DuBoise was only 18 when he was arrested. According to the lawsuit, investigators initially focused on him after an employee at a gas station across from where Grams was found told police that three “boys” named Robert, Bo and Ray had “caused trouble”. It was six months before Grams was killed.
Convicted of murder and sentenced to death, his sentence was reduced in 1988 to life imprisonment until his exoneration and release last year. His innocence was proven after a review of the case by the Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Office and Project Innocence, which operates nationwide.
“A free man for the first time since his teenage years, Mr. DuBoise must now get his life back in hand after nearly 40 years in prison,” said the trial. “Mr. DuBoise was deprived of all the basic pleasures of human experience, which all free men enjoy by right. “
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