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North Carolina Man Exonerated After 14 Years
Posted: September 2, 2009 5:40 pm
At 2:30 this afternoon, Joseph Abbitt walked out of a North Carolina courthouse a free man for the first time in 14 years, proven innocent through DNA testing. He was serving life in prison for a rape he didn’t commit, and a state judge today vacated his sentence and dropped all charges against him.
DNA testing completed this year shows that another man raped two teenage girls in their Winston-Salem home in 1991. The North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence represents Abbitt and has worked on his case for four years. Although much of the evidence collected in the case had been destroyed, the Winston-Salem Police Department had preserved critical biological evidence collected from the victims’ bodies – and tests on this evidence proved Abbitt’s innocence.
Abbitt becomes the 242nd person exonerated in the United States through DNA testing and the seventh in North Carolina. His conviction was caused in part by eyewitness misidentifications – a factor in more than 75% of wrongful convictions overturned through DNA testing.
News coverage of the case:
Winston-Salem Journal: Man Cleared By DNA Evidence Goes Free
WLTX.com: DNA Clears Man Held of Rape Charge Since ‘95
News & Observer: DNA Test Clears Man of 1991 Rape Charges
Tags: Joseph Abbitt, Darryl Hunt
North Carolina Exoneree Wants Real Perpetrator To Be Found
Posted: April 26, 2010 5:45 pm
That evidence was sent in October 2009, and Mumma said she is still waiting for results. She said she was told early on that there might be a suspect. She said she didn't think it would take this long to get results.
"Had we known that we were looking at the end of April with uncertainty about what progress was being made in the case, we would have likely gone ahead and filed for the pardon in September," she said.
…
Mumma said it is important to find who the rapist was so that Abbitt and the two victims can find some closure.
Captain David Clayton, who manages investigations for the Winston-Salem Police Department, said Abbitt’s is an important case to resolve but that the lab work isn’t back yet. Sometimes it takes several months to get results, he said.
The police have also interviewed the victims, who are now adults, several times. And, investigators have looked at reports of rapes from the same time frame in search of any similarities.
Abbitt now works for the Darryl Hunt Project for Freedom and Justice as an innocence coordinator. There, he works with families of inmates and assists with reviewing letters from inmates who say they were also wrongfully convicted.
Read the full article here.
Read Abbitt’s case profile here.
Tags: Joseph Abbitt
Friday Roundup: Fighting Injustice and Telling the Tale
Posted: May 28, 2010 1:45 pm
Author John Grisham, a member of the Innocence Project Board of Directors, spoke this week at BookExpo America about his next book, “Confession,” about a wrongful conviction. The book is due to be released in October.
And a newly released book, “Killing Time,” by John Hollway and Ronald M. Gauthier, tells the story of the wrongful conviction of John Thompson in Louisiana and explores the causes of injustice in the American criminal justice system.
Tags: Joseph Abbitt