Barry Beach Should Be Returned to the Community

A terrible wrong was briefly made right only to once again be made terribly wrong with the recent Montana Supreme Court decision to return Barry Beach to prison.  On a 4 to 3 split decision, the court reversed Judge Wayne Phillips’ finding that sufficient evidence existed to warrant a new trial for Barry Beach.  Particularly with the advent of DNA evidence testing, we now understand much more about how and why false confessions can and do occur than was understood in the early 1980s when Beach’s confession was obtained at age 20 at the hands of overzealous Louisiana lawmen.  Today, police are better trained in their interrogation tactics and procedural safeguards have been implemented in many jurisdictions to prevent false confessions, such as the requirement to electronically record and preserve interrogations and confessions.  None of these safeguards against false confessions were in place when Beach’s confession was obtained.

After review of this case in great detail over nearly a decade and after carefully considering the arguments from both sides, we see a deeply troubled conviction.  If we had ever seen any credible evidence that Beach was guilty, we would have long ago walked away from this.

Mr. Beach’s conviction was obtained and is now being upheld solely on the basis of his confession to the Monroe, Louisiana police in 1983.  Beach’s confession did not exhibit any material knowledge about the murder other than what was known or thought to be known in the community of Poplar, Montana.  Scores of onlookers were present when the open air crime scene was investigated.  The story was all over town.  A storefront display soliciting anyone with information to step forward prominently displayed what the town thought were the murder weapons.  The state asserts that Mr. Beach’s confession exhibits detailed knowledge that fits the crime so well he had to have done it.  But the state has never coherently explained in detail what those things are to substantiate this assertion.  Indeed there were specific and highly unique details that only the killer(s) would have known but nowhere do these things appear in Beach’s confession.  In fact, at the end of the confession transcript, the Louisiana interrogators are clearly trying to lead Beach in the direction of one of these details without success.  He didn’t know about these specific and highly unique details that only the killer would know because he wasn’t there.  Beach’s confession is furthermore rife with descriptions that are flatly contradicted by physical evidence.  These are not minor, misremembered details.  These are important elements of his confession involving what happened, how it happened, how he disposed of the body, what he did with the murder weapon(s), and how he covered his tracks – that are at odds with the physical evidence.

There is not one piece of physical evidence or eyewitness testimony that connects Beach to the murder.  Not that there wasn’t physical evidence to be had but none of it matches Beach.  There were 42 different sets of fingerprints.  In his confession, Beach explains that he wiped down his fingerprints.  It is not likely Beach could wipe down only his own prints, leaving all others undisturbed.  Nor were there any telltale wipe marks detected in the fingerprint analysis.  Very importantly, a bloody hand print was left at the scene, a print that definitively does not belong to Beach nor does it belong to the victim.  The state has been astonishingly incurious as to who that print belongs to.

In the 30 years since the murder took place, three women who were young adults at the time of the murder, have confided and even boasted to others of their involvement in the murder.  The admissions from these three women have occurred repeatedly over three decades and were heard by over a dozen individuals.  These individuals have stepped forward and testified under oath of what they were told.  Such testimony (statement against interest) is admissible in court.  There is no reason to believe these largely unrelated individuals are all lying.  Some of these witnesses have been subjected to threats as well as actual violence as a result of their testimony.

An eyewitness to the murder has recently come forward.  A young girl at the time, now a middle-aged woman, she was with her cousin on a bluff overlooking the area where the murder occurred and was readily within earshot.  Her cousin made her promise to stay quiet and not get either of them involved.  The eyewitness’ cousin recently was stricken with cancer and died, which at last freed her to bravely step forward and testify to what she witnessed.  This eyewitness testified under oath to hearing the victim’s screams and desperate pleas for help the night of the murder.  She heard the shouts of multiple female voices who were attacking the victim.  Shortly after quiet returned to the scene, she observed a police car with its flashers turned on drive onto the scene.  She watched as there was indistinct movement in the area.  She observed a pickup truck drive a little way away from the immediate scene.  She then heard the sound of digging, the clink of metal objects, then more digging.  Finally, she saw the police car, this time with its flashers turned off, along with the other vehicle, drive away.  This eyewitness’ testimony was found to be highly credible to the judge who heard it.  The eyewitness has also been subject to threats of violence for her testimony.

We have reason to believe that the father of one of the women who have admitted to others of their involvement was the same tribal police officer in that police car seen by the eyewitness.  This same tribal police officer forcibly broke into the locked and posted evidence room where evidence from the crime scene had been stored the night of the initial crime scene investigation.  By his own testimony, the officer broke into the evidence room ostensibly because he had to use the bathroom that was located in the judge’s chambers being temporarily used for evidence storage.

We are not experts in post conviction relief law but we can clearly see with our own eyes that Mr. Beach’s conviction is gravely troubled.  And while others have come to different conclusions about the certainty of his guilt, what is indisputable is that Barry Beach has already served 30 years.  In the 18 months he was free, he proved himself law abiding, hard working, entrepreneurial, civic minded, a man of faith, and an asset to the community of Billings.  Guilty or innocent but especially when innocent, there seems little reason for the taxpayers of Montana to spend $30,000 a year for the rest of his life to keep Beach behind bars.  On behalf of Montanans For Justice we call upon our elected officials and the courts to find a solution that better serves the interests of justice and the interests of taxpayers than to continue Mr. Beach’s imprisonment for another 70 years.