Barry Fairchild, black, was sentenced to death in August 1983 for the kidnap, rape and murder of a white Air Force nurse in February 1993. He now faces execution on 22 September for a murder where judges recognize he was not the killer. At his trial, the prosecution said that he may not have been the one who carried out the murder. However, under Arkansas law an accomplice to murder can be sentenced to death. He was convicted largely on two videotaped confessions, obtained in police custody, which he recanted during his trial, and alleged had been made under duress. It is also alleged that while in custody he was beaten by police and badly bitten in the head by a police dog. He is also allegedly mentally retarded, evidence of which was not presented to the jury, which may ha
