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DNA leads to Florida man's release
Posted: September 21, 2007 3:50 pm
After more than 19 years in prison, Larry Bostic is a free man today. He says he was coerced into pleading guilty in 1989 to a rape he didn’t commit, and now DNA testing has proven his innocence. Although Bostic only had 13 days remaining in prison, he was released on house arrest Tuesday and his sentence was vacated this morning by a Broward County judge.
Bostic told reporters today that he’s lucky his family stuck with him through the ordeal. He said he is staying with his sister in Fort Lauderdale.
More than a year ago, Bostic filed a handwritten motion asking for DNA testing of the rape kit and the victim's underwear. Such testing was not available in 1988. Bostic's motion also said he had been "coerced" into pleading guilty by the prosecutor and his own court-appointed lawyer. The DNA results came back Aug. 30. The report said Bostic was excluded as a contributor to a semen sample from a vaginal swab.Read about other Florida cases in which DNA proved innocence here.
But that alone would not clear Bostic, his attorney Sandler said earlier. It would be necessary to make sure the victim had not had sex with anyone else in the days prior to the rape, because if she had, it could taint the semen sample, Sandler said.
That assurance came this week when the rape victim told an investigator for the public defender's office there had been no sexual contact just before the rape, Sandler said.
She also told the investigator that she never saw her rapist, Sandler said earlier. She picked Bostic out of a photo line-up because she remembered seeing him, a stranger, in the vicinity of the rape a few days earlier, Sandler said.
Read the full story and watch video of Bostic here. (South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 09/21/07)
Tags: Larry Bostic
Florida public defender proposes identification reform
Posted: October 29, 2007 12:15 pm
Almost 20 years ago, Larry Bostic was convicted in Florida of a rape he didn’t commit after the victim identified him in a photo lineup. He was exonerated this year when DNA evidence proved his innocence, and a new investigation of the crime uncovered shocking news about the misidentification – the victim never saw the perpetrator. She told investigators this year that she had identified Bostic because she knew she had seen him around the neighborhood days before the attack.
In the wake of Bostic’s exoneration, Broward County Public Defender Howard Finkelstein sent a letter last week to area law enforcement urging them to consider reforming their eyewitness identification policies. Eyewitness identification is the leading cause of wrongful convictions overturned by DNA testing.
"These procedures will impact the human cost of misidentification," (Finkelstein) said. "This isn't about pointing the finger at law enforcement. This is about making sure the methodology and the systems we employ are designed so innocent people don't get ensnared in our system."Read more about proposed eyewitness identification reforms.
Read the full story here. (Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, 10/29/2007)
Read about Larry Bostic’s case.
Tags: Larry Bostic
Two Men Mark One Year of Freedom
Posted: September 18, 2008 5:35 pm
In 1991, Marcus Lyons dressed in his old Navy uniform, carried a large wooden cross, and attempted to crucify himself on the courthouse steps. He had recently been paroled, and these were the same steps where he was tried and wrongfully convicted three years earlier. "I needed someone to listen," he said in a recent interview. However, it would take another 16 years before he was exonerated.
In November of 1987, Lyons was a recently engaged Navy Reserve Officer living in suburban Chicago when a white woman was raped in the neighboring apartment complex. While Lyons maintained he had been home that night, the victim and the neighbors matched Lyons to a police composite sketch. Although Lyons weighed 160 pounds and the victim identified the perpetrator as weighing 200 pounds, he was brought in for questioning.
Lyons permitted police to search his apartment where they found brown polyester pants similar to the victim's description of the perpetrator's clothing. The victim identified Lyons as the perpetrator in a photo lineup and testified at his trial, and the jury convicted him. Lyons hired a private lawyer to file an appeal on his behalf, but the attorney never filed it. He was released on parole three years after his convicted, but says he struggled with the stigma of a felony conviction for a crime he didn’t commit. He was exonerated one year ago today when DNA testing proved he wasn’t the man who raped the victim.
Sunday will also mark the one-year anniversary of Larry Bostic's exoneration. Accused of a rape he didn’t commit in 1988, Bostic pled guilty to avoid a possible harsh sentence at trial. He was sentenced to eight years in prison, and was released on parole after three years. He would later be convicted of an unrelated assault and sentenced to 17 years in prison as a repeat offender. When he was exonerated on September 21, 2007, after DNA testing proved he never committed the rape, he was just 13 days from the end of his sentence.
After his release, Bostic said: "If you got an attorney telling you to take a plea agreement, and you might not win if you go to trial, what seems better to you? A little bit of time or a whole bunch of time?"
Both Lyons and Bostic sought DNA testing in their cases for years before they were finally exonerated. None of the 220 people exonerated by DNA evidence would be free today if they didn’t have access to DNA tests to clear their names. Seven states have no statute under which a defendant can apply for DNA testing. Is yours one? View our interactive map to find out.
Thousands of Innocence Project supporters have signed our petition for DNA access. Add your name today.
Other exoneration anniversary this week:
Gilbert Alejandro, Texas (Served 3.5 Years, Exonerated in 1994)
Tags: Gilbert Alejandro, Larry Bostic, Marcus Lyons
Florida exonerees speak out
Posted: October 15, 2008 1:16 pm
Two men who spent decades in prison for crimes they didn’t commit told their stories last week to students at the University of Tampa. Alana Crotzer and Larry Bostic spent a combined 42 years in prison before DNA testing exonerated them and led to their release.
Crotzer (above right, with DNA analyst Ed Blake, whose lab conducted testing in Crotzer's case) talked about work he does today mentoring teens in the state department of juvenile justice. He said he is readjusting to life outside of prison, and only looking forward.
"I lived through a lot of stuff," said Crotzer, 47, who was charged with kidnapping, robbery and rape in 1981 when he was 19. "They kept me for all of my 20s, all of my 30s and half of my 40s. But I don't have to be bitter. My life has to go on."Read more about Bostic and Crotzer’s cases.
Read the full story here. (Tampa Tribune, 10/9/08)
More than one-third of exonerees were arrested between the ages of 14 and 22. They lost the prime of their lives for crimes they didn't commit. Learn more about the impact on wrongful conviction on young people and get involved today.
Tags: Larry Bostic, Alan Crotzer