The Police Misconduct Case

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Police Misconduct
The amount of shoddy investigation practices in this case is unbelievable. For one thing, Kyle Gibbs, a police officer in Ada, at first sent Sergeant Phillips to the wrong McAnally's. It took twice the time for Phillips to get the scene because Gibbs did not use his common sense to find out where the reported crime took place. In the same night, the police did not bother, nor think to collect forensic evidence of the scene. The store manager threw out the open beer can on the counter and "emptied the ashtray with a single cigarette butt in it" Mayer, 1987, p. 8). The two pieces of evidence that could have definitively solved the crime were tossed away like garbage.
When the police publicized the composite sketches of the men …show more content…
Although Bill Peterson does reiterate his evidence, his evidence is lacking in strength. Calling his evidence circumstantial is a courtesy. Aside from the confession tapes, Bill Peterson just had a bunch of puzzle pieces which he cut up to fit his picture of the crime. He appeals to the emotions of the jury, asking them, "Was it a dream to Denice…or a living nightmare?" Mayer, 1987, p. 395). He is also begging the question, by assuming that he has already proven Denice was murdered. Peterson also makes an ad hominem argument, by downplaying Richard Kerner's skill as an investigator and mocks him, calling him "Dick Tracy in disguise" Mayer, 1987, p. 395). Chris Ross does the same about Janette Roberts' pictures of Tommy, exclaiming, "her credibility stinks!" Mayer, 1987, p. 398). Ross' theory that Odell is actually Tommy is an unsupported blind statement. Mayer points out that Odell appears in both Fontenot and Tommy's tapes, which would not make sense if he was an incarnation of Tommy. Also, Tommy and Odell were in the store together, which does not fit with Ross' theory. As with the police, the prosecution molded the suspects to their evidence, instead of using the evidence to prove the suspects committed the …show more content…
The prosecution did not prove corpus delicti. Not once did the prosecution prove that Tommy and Fontenot were at McAnally's. The closest they got was establishing that Tommy may have been at J.P.'s down the road from McAnally's. The only time Fontenot was implicated in the crime was through Tommy's confession. The prosecution did not prove either confession to be true, and that would have been impossible seeing that they were elicited through police malpractice. The witnesses against Tommy and Fontenot were either unreliable, erroneous or unrelated to the case. The prosecution did not prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Tommy Ward and Karl Fontenot committed any crime, let alone rape and
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