After Serving 20 Years, Man Faces Murder Charge in Same 1966 Case
After spending about 20 years in prison for shooting a Philadelphia police officer responding to a break-in call in 1966, William Barnes seemingly had paid his debt to society.
But the 71-year-old was rearrested last year and charged with murder after the officer, Walter Barclay, died of a urinary tract infection and sepsis that prosecutors say was caused by the paralysis that he suffered as a result of being shot in the spine. Now a municipal court judge has ruled that the case should be tried, and set a trial date of March 19, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer .
Judge Bradley K. Moss says he found no other cases in the U.S. in which a defendant was charged with murder when the victim died so many years after the crime. However, he noted that state law no longer limits murder prosecutions to cases in which the victim dies within a year and a day, as it once did, according to the newspaper.
The attorney representing Barnes argued that intervening causes—two car accidents that Barclay had been involved in after the shooting, as well as a fall from his wheelchair—could have resulted in his death in August at age 64. At a preliminary hearing yesterday, the acting medical examiner testified that no autopsy had been performed on Barclay and that his medical records go back only to 1977.
If convicted, the white-haired Barnes faces a life sentence because of the three-strikes law, according to prosecutor Ed Cameron.
