#059 Jason Flom with Steven Barnes

Wrongful Conviction

Lava for Good Podcasts

True Crime

4.4 • 5.8K Ratings

🗓️ 18 June 2018

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In March 1988, Steven Barnes was arrested and charged with the rape, sodomy, and murder of 16-year-old Kimberly Simon in upstate New York. He was tried by a jury in Utica beginning on May 15, 1989. Questionable eyewitness identifications and three forms of unvalidated forensic science were used against Steven at trial, and he was convicted of rape and murder and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. Nearly two decades later, on November 25, 2008, DNA testing obtained by the Innocence Project proved his innocence and Steven Barnes walked out of the Utica courthouse a free man.

https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/with-jason-flom

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I've never been in trouble in my life. I didn't even have a parking ticket. I was brought up like cops or the good guys.
0:09.0	I didn't know what was going to happen, but I do know that everything was stacked against me. Everything, like everything.
0:17.0	This isn't supposed to happen this way. I'm innocent. I know I'm innocent. I know I had nothing to do with this. How is this possible?
0:28.0	I grew up trusting the system. I grew up believing that every human being should do the right thing.
0:33.0	And that's why even though I knew I was dealing with corrupt people, I wasn't going to brave anyone to get me out of prison.
0:39.0	Because I wouldn't live with the fact that I brave my way out of my wife's death.
0:44.0	I'm not innocent to prove I'm guilty until I prove my innocence and that's absolutely what happened to me.
0:50.0	Our system since I've been out 10 years, it's come a little ways, but it's still broken.
0:55.0	I totally lost trust in the humanity of the world to happen to me.
1:02.0	This is wrongful conviction.
1:05.0	Welcome back to wrongful conviction. Today's episode is insane. This story will really rattle your perceptions of criminal justice. And the guy who's here to tell it is an extraordinary guy.
1:31.0	In 2008, Stephen Barnes entered an unfamiliar new world. For two decades, he'd been locked in prison convicted for the murder of 16-year-old Kimberly Simon.
1:42.0	It was a crime he had not committed. A jury convicted Barnes in 1989 based on mistakes by eyewitnesses,
1:49.0	Allying jailhouse informant, and bad science. DNA evidence exonerated Barnes two days before Thanksgiving in 2008.
1:58.0	Stephen Barnes, welcome to wrongful conviction. Thank you for having me.
2:01.0	Your case is truly bizarre in that it is one of the most unreal situation when you were convicted with the total absence of any kind of evidence.
2:11.0	And with everything that there was, pointing elsewhere, we're going to get into that later.
2:16.0	But I want to go back to the beginning because you were really just a kid when this happened.
2:20.0	Yes. You grew up in the suburbs in New York, right?
2:23.0	Yeah, a small town in New York in New York called Marcy New York.
2:26.0	Right. And how was your childhood?
2:29.0	Good. I went to Catholic school for eight years. I went to another high school for two years.
	...

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