CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The West Virginia Supreme Court will allow Joseph Anthony Buffey to withdraw his guilty plea to the rape of an elderly woman 14 years ago, citing new DNA evidence showing he was not the attacker.
Buffey was sentenced to 70 years in prison in 2002 after confessing to the rape and robbery of the 83-year-old woman, the mother of a Clarksburg police officer. However, Innocence Project attorney Allan Karlin argued Buffey was pressured into the statement.
The court agreed agreed Tuesday with Karlin’s contention that the prosecution withheld the DNA evidence from Buffey.
“The Court finds the State’s failure to disclose the favorable DNA test results obtained six weeks prior to (Buffey’s) plea hearing violated the Petitioner’s due process rights,” wrote Chief Justice Margaret Workman in the majority opinion.
The DNA evidence eventually linked another man, Adam Bowers, to the attack. He was convicted and sentenced last month to 30 to 70 years in prison. Harrison County authorities theorized there were two attackers, and that Buffey was the second individual.
The Supreme Court’s decision returns Buffey’s case to Harrison County Circuit Court, and Karlin said he expects a hearing where Buffey—currently being held at the state’s maximum-security prison at Mount Olive—will ask for bail. The Harrison County prosecutor’s office must decide if it wants to pursue further charges against Buffey.
Karlin called the decision “extremely important to both Joseph Buffey and to the development of state and federal constitutional law.”
The court’s decision may have broad implications for plea bargaining. A 1963 U.S Supreme Court decision (Brady v. Maryland) requires prosecutors to turn over potentially exculpatory evidence—evidence that could excuse or absolve a defendant of fault or guilt—before trial. However, there is no such requirement in plea bargains.
The court’s decision in Buffey says disclosures should “extend to the plea negotiation stage of the criminal proceedings, and a defendant may seek to withdraw a guilty plea based upon the prosecution’s suppression of material, exculpatory evidence.”