Opinion ID: 2280356
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Strength of the Evidence

Text: This Court is required to determine whether sufficient evidence exists to support a conviction by reviewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury's decision, as the principal opinion correctly notes. State v. Langdon, 110 S.W.3d 807, 811 (Mo. banc 2003). This general rule does not apply, however, when this Court reviews a sentence of death; section 565.035.3 requires this Court independently to assess the strength of the evidence against the defendant in assessing whether a sentence of death is warranted. In this case, the primary evidence relied on by the stateand, undoubtedly, the juryto convict Bowman was the presence of his DNA profile in what was alleged to be the victim's underwear. While the DNA may be sufficient to sustain Bowman's conviction, it is insufficient to sustain a sentence of death. [3] The story of how Bowman came to be charged with the murder of Velda Rumfelt is telling. Following his Alford plea, Bowman was convicted in 1979 of the murders of two young women in Illinois. The convictions were based on his confessions to a jailhouse snitch, which, some 20 years later, an Illinois circuit court found to have been involuntary, the result of the bizarre scheme concocted by a deputy sheriff and a jailhouse snitch whom the deputy sheriff considered to be a con artist. The Illinois appeals court upheld the circuit court's conclusion that Bowman had been conned and affirmed the order granting a new trial. Bowman, 270 Ill.Dec. 139, 782 N.E.2d 333. [4] After some years in jail awaiting a new trial, Bowman posted bail with the Illinois circuit court in January 2007. Within days of his release, on January 30, 2007, a Belleville police detective called the St. Louis County police department and spoke with a St. Louis County police detective. The St. Louis County police detective's report says that the Belleville police detective advised him that he was investigating a suspect who had just been released from custody after his conviction, [sic] was vacated in St. Clair County, Il after serving nearly 30 years for the murders of two young females. The Belleville police detective asked whether St. Louis County had any open homicides of young females that had occurred in 1977 or 1978. The Belleville police detective was informed of Velda Rumfelt's homicide and that DNA evidence was available. The Belleville police detective then forwarded Bowman's DNA profile to Dr. Margaret Walsh [5] to test against the DNA found in Rumfelt's alleged underwear. Bowman was arrested on a St. Louis County warrant fewer than three days later, on February 2, 2007. When Bowman was released on bail, police undoubtedly believed a murderer of two young women was walking around Belleville, free to do as he pleased, pending his new trial. But within 72 hours of the Belleville police contacting the St. Louis County police department, Bowman was once again behind bars. With Bowman in jail in St. Louis County, the state of Illinois was relieved of the problem of providing him a new trial in the 1979 case, provided that Bowman be convicted of the 1977 murder of Velda Rumfelt in Missouri. This solution to the Illinois problem how to re-try Bowmanseems almost too good to be true. Life teaches, of course, that when something is almost too good to be true, it often is not true. There is a problem with the DNA evidence in this case and an even bigger problem with the eyewitness identification used to bolster the case against Bowman.