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Massachusetts man marks eight years of freedom
Posted: May 9, 2008 3:32 pm
Neil Miller spent almost the entire 1990s in Massachusetts prison for a rape he didn’t commit before DNA testing proved his innocence and led to his exoneration on May 10, 2000. Tomorrow, he marks the eighth anniversary of his release.
Miller is one of more than 160 exonerees whose wrongful convictions were caused, at least in part, by eyewitness misidentification. The victim in Miller’s case identified him in a book of mug shots, and again at trial. He claimed his innocence throughout the ordeal but was convicted and sentenced to 26-45 years.
Read more about Miller’s case here.
Other exoneration anniversaries this week:
Sunday: Glen Woodall, West Virginia (Served 4.5 years, Exonerated 05/04/92)
Wednesday: Jeffrey Pierce, Oklahoma (Served 14.5 years, Exonerated 05/07/01)
Tags: Neil Miller, Jeffrey Pierce, Glen Woodall
The first year of freedom
Posted: May 12, 2008 7:00 am
Curtis McCarty spent 21 years in Oklahoma prison – most of it on death row – for a murder that DNA proves he didn’t commit. After years of appeals and legal battles, he was finally exonerated and released on May 11, 2007 due to DNA evidence proving that another man committed the murder.
McCarty is one of three exonerees who were wrongfully convicted based on fraudulent forensic testimony from notorious Oklahoma lab analyst Joyce Gilchrist. In McCarty’s case, Gilchrist originally found that hairs from the crime scene did not match McCarty’s hair. Then, after three years of fruitless police investigation, Gilchrist changed her notes and said the hairs could have been his. She then went further to testify at McCarty’s first trial that he “was in fact” at the crime scene.
His death sentence was overturned twice during the decades to come, but both times he was tried against and sentenced again to death. In 2005, with the Innocence Project working on his case with McCarty’s local attorneys, his conviction was tossed out yet again. After two more years in legal limbo, the indictment was dismissed and McCarty was finally exonerated.
Read more about McCarty’s case here.
Read about the other two exonerees convicted based on Gilchrist’s false testimony: Jeffrey Pierce and Robert Miller.
Other exoneration anniversaries this week:
Wednesday: Josiah Sutton, Texas (Served 4.5 years, Exonerated 5/14/04)
Friday: Douglas Warney, New York (Served 9 Years, Exonerated 5/16/06)
Saturday: Ulysses Rodriguez Charles, Massachusetts (Served 17 years, Exonerated 5/17/01)
Ronald Jones, Illinois (Served 10 years, Exonerated 5/18/99)
Tags: Ulysses Rodriguez Charles, Ronald Jones, Curtis McCarty, Robert Miller, Jeffrey Pierce, Josiah Sutton, Douglas Warney
Eight Years Ago Today
Posted: May 7, 2009 3:54 pm
Today marks the eighth anniversary of the day Jeffrey Pierce walked out of an Oklahoma prison a free man for the first time in more than 14 years. He was convicted in 1986 of a rape he didn’t commit, based in part on the misleading testimony of notorious forensic analyst Joyce Gilchrist.
In 1985, a woman was raped in her Oklahoma City home, and Pierce became a suspect because he was working in the area with a landscaping crew. He didn’t match the victim’s initial description of the perpetrator, however, and she did not identify him when he was pointing out as a suspect. Months later, he was included in a photo lineup wearing clothes that matched her description of the perpetrator and she identified him as the attacker.
Gilchrist, whose testimony has been involved in at least four wrongful convictions overturned by DNA testing, testified at Pierce’s trial that hairs collected from the victim’s apartment shared unique characteristics with Pierce’s hair. He was convicted and sentenced to 65 years in prison. He served nearly 15 years before he was freed by DNA testing that proved his innocence and implicated the real perpetrator.
Today, Pierce lives in Michigan with his family, including his adult twin sons who were infants at the time of his conviction.
Other Anniversary This Week:
Monday: Glen Woodall, West Virginia (Served 4.5 Years, Exonerated 1992)
Tags: Jeffrey Pierce