T
he outlook for Richard Jones appeared bleak when KU Law Project for Innocence interns Chapman Williams and Chad Neswick took over his case in 2015. Despite maintaining his innocence from the start, Jones had already spent 15 years in prison for aggravated robbery — convicted after the victim and witnesses of a purse snatching identified him in a police lineup. Without new evidence to counter the eyewitness testimony, relief seemed unlikely. Then something happened that made everyone see the case differently. Inmates at the Lansing Correctional Facility — where Jones was serving his 19-year sentence — started mistaking him for another guy on the inside named Ricky Amos. Jones reported the lookalike confusion to the Project for Innocence, and Williams and Neswick tracked down mug shots of Amos. “They looked like they could have been twins,” Williams said. “From there, other pieces of the puzzle began fitting together.” Now Jones is enjoying new views. He walked free in June after a Johnson County judge reversed his conviction and ordered his release. Jones held his 2-year-old granddaughter for the first time and enjoyed a barbecue with family and friends. “Working on Richard’s case has taught me to look at every case with care,” said KU Law student Brenna Lynch, who helped draft the petition that won Jones another chance to challenge his conviction. “It’s bittersweet. We were able to help Richard, and now he gets to be with his family and live as a free man again. But it’s hard knowing that almost 20 years of his life were taken from him for a crime he didn’t commit.”
‘No other option’ On May 30, 1999, Jones celebrated his girlfriend’s birthday by hosting a Memorial Day weekend barbecue in Kansas City, Missouri. The next day, he was home all day cleaning up. A few miles across the state line in Kansas City, Kansas, three people who had been driving around smoking crack went to a neighborhood where they could buy more. They picked up a man named Rick at a known drug house. He told them to drive to a nearby Walmart,
verified alibi, he was convicted based solely on eyewitness identification. “Richard Jones’s case highlights the flaws in eyewitness identification and the importance of proper procedures,” said Alice Craig, Project for Innocence supervising attorney. “Witnesses were presented with no other option but to choose Jones in the lineups as created. None of the other photos matched the description provided by the witnesses.”
Ricky Amos
where he attempted to steal a woman’s purse in the parking lot. She fought back, sustaining minor injuries, and the assailant got away with only her cell phone. Neither the victim nor the Walmart security guard got a good look at the attacker. According to court records, they could only describe him as a thin, light-skinned black or Hispanic man with dark hair. Through a series of identification procedures, police and witnesses came to believe Richard Jones was the assailant. He was arrested nine months after the attack and convicted of aggravated robbery in 2000. No physical evidence tied Jones to the getaway vehicle, the victim or the robbery. Despite presenting a
Richard Jones
Manifest injustice Those flawed identification procedures became strikingly clear after Jones drew the attention of Project for Innocence advocates to the existence of his doppelganger, Ricky Amos. As students Williams and Neswick dug deeper, they discovered that Amos had committed other crimes consistent with the one for which Jones was serving time. They also determined that Amos had lived in the Kansas City area and was associated with the address of the duplex where Jones had allegedly been picked up before the robbery. “With all of these facts, we were able to build a case, including meeting with the victim of the crime and witnesses who were at Walmart that
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