TULSA, Okla. (AP) - A federal appeals court on Monday reversed the conviction and prison sentence of a man who was found guilty of robbing a Tulsa bank, ruling that the testimony of an FBI agent during the defendant’s trial was improper.
A three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals handed down the decision in the case of Stanley Eugene Hill, who was convicted of robbing an Arvest Bank branch on Nov. 5, 2011, as well as related charges. Hill was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison.
The ruling instructed the U.S. District Court in Tulsa to set aside Hill’s conviction and sentence. Trisha Young, spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Danny C. Williams Sr., said Williams declined comment on the ruling and whether he will schedule another trial for Hill.
The decision is based on the testimony of FBI agent Charles Jones, who claimed he was trained to identify deceptions and truths in people’s statements. Jones testified that statements by Hill in which he denied involvement in the robbery were full of deceptions.
“Jones claimed that Stanley displayed evasive behaviors common among the criminal element to keep law enforcement at bay’ during an interrogation,” the appeals court’s decision states. “When asked about Stanley’s statement that he would rather die than face charges, Jones testified, ’Never in my career have I seen that with an innocent person.’”
Hill did not object to the evidence at the time but it nevertheless affected his “substantial rights,” the court ruled.
“The agent testified that in his expert opinion the defendant’s story was unworthy of belief and that the defendant’s evasive behavior demonstrated guilt,” the decision states. “Such testimony is intolerable under our system of jurisprudence, which has long recognized jurors’ ability and sole responsibility to determine credibility.”
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