Innocent in Prison

Faye Jacobs was treated by “other people” to life imprisonment without parole at the age of sixteen for a murder she did not commit.

Below is the press statement from the Midwest Innocence Project, the legal initiative that finally got her released from prison in Pine Bluff Arkansas.

On the evening of February 9, 1992, police picked up Faye Jacobs for questioning in the case of an aggravated robbery and shooting that occurred earlier that afternoon. Witnesses had described the shooter as in her thirties, with scars under her eyes, and wearing pants and a coat – Jacobs, then 16 years old, was still in the white dress she’d worn to church that morning. After gunshot residue tests of Jacob’s hands came back negative, Jacobs’s picture was shown to a witness who could not identify her and she was subsequently released.

Nine days later, the witness who was unable to identify Jacobs as the shooter hours after witnessing the crime, chose Jacobs as the shooter from a photo line-up. More than two weeks from the date of the shooting, another witness chose Jacobs as the shooter from a photo line-up. Jacobs was subsequently charged with capital murder.

Jacobs denied any participation in the murder and had alibi witnesses attesting to her innocence. The jury ruled against Jacobs and found her guilty of capital murder and sentenced her to life imprisonment without parole.

Jacobs was the only female inmate in Arkansas sentenced as a juvenile to life in prison without parole.
But on July 17, 2018, Jacobs walked free after 26 years of imprisonment for a murder she did not commit. She was re-sentenced from “life without parole” to time served.

Despite being freed, Jacobs still has the conviction on her record.

“Faye’s case exemplifies just how difficult it is to overturn a conviction in our justice system,” said MIP executive director Tricia Bushnell. “It should not be this hard, but she’s not done seeking justice and neither are we.”