| First Name | Gene |
| Last Name | Bibbins |
| Year of Conviction | 1987 |
| Year of Exoneration | 2003 |
| Testing inculpated culprit | Cold Hit |
| State of Conviction | Louisiana |
| Trial, Bench Trial, or Guilty Plea | Trial |
| Type of Crime | Rape |
| Death Sentence | No |
| Life / LWOP sentence | Life |
| Gender of Exoneree | Male |
| Race of exoneree | Black |
| Juvenile | No |
| Description / Quotes from Testimony Concerning Defense | Missing transcript of defense case |
| Did the defendant testify at trial? | No |
| Types of evidence at trial |
|
| Type of Forensic Evidence |
|
| Types of Flawed Forensics |
|
| Brief Quote / Description of Testimony | The analyst claimed state lab analysis of latent fingerprints were not identifiable and one could not reach a conclusion when in fact they excluded the defendant. See Part II.F.2 for a discussion of this case. |
| Identity of eyewitness |
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| Lineup Procedures |
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| Suggestive Procedures | Yes ● Show-up – but properly conducted shortly after the incident. However, prior to show-up, police took victim Bibbins’ apartment, and she exclaimed “That’s it, that’s it,” upon seeing a radio that she said was the one stolen from her. Fifth Circuit ruled in a post-conviction civil suit that “where the victim was shown the proceeds of the crime ante making a positive identification. The strong admonition against the use of showups, coupled with the fact that [the victim] was shown the proceeds of the crime, leads this court to believe that the Fifth Circuit would find the identification in this case to be “unnecessarily suggestive.” Gary Wells concluded post-exoneration that “A show-up procedure in which the victim is shown “proceeds” from the crime has the counter-intuitive result of being highly suggestive. It often leads victims to incorrectly assume that the police apprehended the true perpetrator.” |
| Quotes from testimony #1 | Officer described placing Bibbins in a squad car, driving to the victim’s building, the victim walked “eight, ten feet” from the car, and “I took my flashlight and shined it through the window and the victim id’d him.” |
| Unreliable Identification? | No ●Discrepancy in descriptions – he had short cropped hair the day of the assault, while victim described an attacker with curly hair |
| Quotes from testimony #2 | Q. Does he look different now? A. Yes. Q. How does he look different? A. His hair has grown and he doesn’t have an earring and those same clothes on. Q. When you described the assailant — assailant’s hair, you never told the police that he had a jeri-curl? Did you tell that to the police? A. No, sir. Another suspect present when police elicited description testified victim told police that the assailant “had long, curly hair” Post-exoneration expert Dr. Gary Wells concluded “the probability of [the victim] giving such a detailed description of her attacker, matching an innocent man in nearly every respect, was “astronomically low.” Bibbins hopes to have Dr. Wells testify that the defendants must have fabricated the evidence by first apprehending Bibbins, and then later putting in their reports that [the victim’s] description of her attacker exactly matched him.” |
| Highest level reached | NR |