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The Texas Exonerated
Posted: October 27, 2008 4:05 pm
A feature in this month’s Texas Monthly profiles 37 people cleared with DNA testing after serving a combined 525 years in prison.
The first thing you notice is the eyes—they all have the same look in them, the look of men accustomed to waking up every morning in a prison cell. These 37 men spent years, and in some cases decades, staring through bars at a world that believed they were guilty of terrible crimes. But they weren’t. Each was convicted of doing something he did not do. It’s hard to characterize the look in their eyes. There’s anger, obviously, and pride at having survived hell, but there’s also hurt, and a question: “Why me?”Visit the Texas Monthly website for video of a photoshoot with 21 exonerees and audio slideshows telling the stories of more than a dozen.
The short answer is simple: People make mistakes. Most of these cases share a common story line: A woman, usually a traumatized rape victim, wrongly identifies her attacker. Sometimes her testimony is backed by rudimentary serology tests. Sometimes the cases are pushed too hard by aggressive police officers or prosecutors.
Tags: James Giles, Entre Nax Karage, Carlos Lavernia, Brandon Moon, Christopher Ochoa, Anthony Robinson, Ronald Taylor, Patrick Waller, James Waller, Gregory Wallis
Carlos Lavernia Marks Eight Years of Freedom
Posted: November 28, 2008 4:15 pm
Tomorrow marks the eighth anniversary of Carlos Lavernia’s exoneration in Texas. He spent 15 years in prison for a rape he didn’t commit before he was finally exonerated by DNA testing in 1998.
In June 1983, a Texas woman was walking to a park for her daily jog. On her way to the park, she walked past a Latino man, who she would later describe as about 5'6” tall, wearing a maroon shirt and baggy pants. When she began her jog, the same man began jogging behind her. Suddenly, he attacked her and dragged her off the trail. The perpetrator held her at knifepoint and raped her.
Although police stopped Lavernia four times, he did not become a suspect until one year after the crime. Police showed the victim three rounds of photo lineups before she identified Lavernia as her attacker. She testified that Lavernia was the only one in the lineup who "anywhere near resembled" the police sketch. Based on the victim’s identification, Lavernia was convicted and sentenced to 99 years.
Writing his own appeals, Lavernia repeatedly claimed ineffective counsel and problems with the victim's identification, and he repeatedly lost. It was not until 1999, when he asked for DNA testing, that his case was finally revisited. A detective and a police officer visited Lavernia in prison. They took a sample of his DNA, and compared it to the victim's stained running shorts and hospital swabs from the rape kit. Lavernia was exonerated in 2000, when the test results excluded him as a suspect.
Since his exoneration, Lavernia still thinks about his time in prison: "I dream too much about it all. Too much. Almost every day. All the pain. I don't want to go nowhere. I still got it on my mind."
Other exoneration anniversaries this week:
John Dixon, New Jersey (Served 10 years, Exonerated 2001)
Ronnie Mahan, Alabama (Served 11.5 years, Exonerated 1998)
Dale Mahan, Alabama (Served 11.5 years, Exonerated 1998)
Tags: Carlos Lavernia