Barry Jones Release Fund

**UPDATE**

First and foremost, I must again express my gratitude for the generosity and kind words you all have shared with Barry. I’ll probably embarrass him a bit (but he doesn’t have internet yet so I have a few days), but the man tears up every time I share an update with him on the total. To be honest, I’m still not sure he quite understands how all of this works or why so many people care about him, and he’s just so thankful that if we didn’t raise another nickel, it’d still take him months to process your all’s kindness.

That said, when I first set a goal, I picked what I thought was an insane amount of money never thinking we’d get there. We were there in 2 days or something, so I raised it to another ridiculous amount, again at random, and well, a week into this whole thing and we’re nearly there too.

I got to thinking and did some math though. You might look at this new goal and wonder how I came up with that or why it seems so big. It represents $10.00 a day for each of the 10,636 he spent wrongfully incarcerated. Just $10. And all of the sudden, my goal didn’t seem so ridiculous.

Please know Barry doesn’t even know I’m doing this update. Again, if we stopped today, he’d still be over the moon in amazement at what you all have done for him. And I don’t really expect to hit this goal, I just think it puts it all in some perspective. This seems like a number that should have some kind of meaning behind it.

I’d also like to note that we are still in the process of setting up bank accounts – all that takes a bit when you don’t have a real ID. But I’m guessing we have all that set up in the next few days or so. Until then, the money is staying in GFM. We’ve also got a number of people on his side to help guide and counsel him on how to make the best use of all this and to make it last as long as it needs to.

Thank you.

Andrew

My name is Andrew Sowards. I retired as a criminal defense investigator from the Federal Public Defender in 2019. I'm raising funds for a former client, Barry Jones, who has finally been released after serving nearly 3 decades on death row for a crime he didn't commit. Though two federal courts granted him relief and a new trial, the United States Supreme Court overturned those decisions on a technicality. Now a year after that decision, Barry is finally free. Below is a link to detailed reporting on the case by Liliana Segura.

In over 20 years of investigating, I've never been more convinced than I am here - Barry Jones didn't fatally assault or physically harm Rachel Gray, the victim in this case. Had he had a fair trial, that would have been easily proven. Yet his trial lawyers did no investigation into the case and were unprepared to defend Barry's life. I've copied a statement from Barry's lawyers below that explains how this release is now possible.

To help Barry get started, I'd like to help raise some money that will make his first few months out a little easier. Barry is starting from scratch and will leave prison with nothing. We have a team of people helping with the logistics, but the reality is he's going to need funds to start over. He's nearly 65 and while he looks forward to working again, his options will be limited. We'd like to be able to secure housing and transportation, as well as things he'll need like clothes, a phone, the everyday stuff, and keep him going for a little while.

https://legacy.theintercept.com/series/death-and-dereliction/

Barry Jones is being released from prison in Arizona after 29 years on death row for a crime he did not commit.

June 15, 2023Tucson, Arizona – Today, Barry Jones was granted his freedom decades after he was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death in Arizona, for fatally assaulting Rachel Gray, a four-year-old child.

A federal district court judge ordered in 2018 that Mr. Jones’s convictions be vacated based on the compelling medical evidence that it was not Barry Jones who caused Rachel’s fatal injuries; and a unanimous panel of Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed. However, last year the United States Supreme Court ignored its own precedents to hold that the federal courts would not be permitted to even consider the new evidence proving that Mr. Jones was wrongfully convicted.

While the Supreme Court’s decision left Barry Jones on death row, it did not block the State of Arizona from considering the evidence that he had not caused Rachel’s fatal injuries. After a careful review, the Arizona Attorney General agreed that Barry Jones’s conviction for assaulting Rachel and the resulting death sentence could not stand. The Arizona Attorney General joined Mr. Jones in asking the state court to vacate his convictions and death sentence.

Pursuant to a settlement agreement with the State, Mr. Jones did accept some responsibility; he pled guilty to second degree murder, but his plea was based solely on his failure to take Rachel to the hospital when he first noticed that she was sick on the night before she died. Mr. Jones was sentenced to time served.

Below is a statement from Cary Sandman, Barry Jones’s lead attorney at the Federal Public Defender’s Office:

“After almost 30 years on death row for a crime he did not commit, Barry Jones is finally coming home. Barry spent nearly three decades on Arizona’s death row despite compelling evidence that he was innocent of charges that he had fatally assaulted Rachel Gray.”

“The flawed evidence supporting Barry’s convictions and death sentence resulted from a combination of shoddy and constitutionally deficient defense lawyering, junk science and myopic police work. Two federal courts granted him habeas corpus relief, but he remained on death row because of a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Shinn v. Ramirez and Jones. In Shinn, the Court gutted its own precedents and rendered federal courts powerless to even consider the very evidence proving Barry had been wrongfully convicted and denied a constitutionally just trial.”

While Shinn may have shut the courthouse doors, the need to correct an unjust conviction remained. At his 1995 trial, the State claimed that Rachel died as a result of an injury she sustained while in Barry’s care. This could have been easily disproven. But Barry’s court-appointed lawyer failed to conduct any investigation and, as a result, did not discover readily available medical evidence that would have proven beyond any doubt that Rachel sustained her injuries when she was not in Barry’s care. Because Barry’s jury heard none of this evidence, it convicted him, and the trial judge sentenced him to death.

“We are profoundly grateful to the Arizona Attorney General and the Pima County Attorney for taking a fresh look at Barry’s case and acknowledging he had never received a fair trial , just as the federal district court and the Ninth Circuit had previously found. We hope that Barry can enjoy the rest of his life in peace surrounded by his family and friends.”

The Arizona Federal Public Defender has represented Mr. Jones for over 20 years.