2-11-2015 Illinois:
An Illinois man who served 29 years in prison for the rape and murder of a high school girl was freed on Wednesday after DNA evidence cleared him of any link to the crime, officials said.
Prosecutors said on Wednesday they had vacated charges against Christopher Abernathy, 48, who confessed in 1985 to killing Kristina Hickey, 15, in 1984 in Park Forest, Illinois, a southern suburb of Chicago. He was released after a court order, according to Illinois prison records.
Abernathy, who confessed to the crime when he was 18, may have suffered from a "diminished mental capacity," prosecutors said. They tested all available evidence in the case and found that Abernathy's DNA profile matched none of it.
"This is difficult for all parties including the victim's family, but I cannot and will not let a wrongful conviction stand," Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez said in a statement.
At the time of the crime, law enforcement did not have the scientific ability to conduct DNA analysis that exists now, she said.
Alvarez started a "Conviction Integrity Unit" in 2012 to focus on reviewing cases involving questionable convictions. Thirteen defendants have since had their convictions vacated.
Such efforts are part of a national trend, according to the National Registry of Exonerations, a project of the University of Michigan Law School.
The number of people exonerated in the United States in 2014 climbed to a record high 125, partly because of work by prosecutors willing to admit their mistakes, the registry found last month.
Abernathy, who had dated Hickey briefly, was initially questioned by police and released. He was rearrested a year later after police learned he had allegedly made admissions to a friend that he was involved in the murder.
After 30 hours in custody, Abernathy provided a handwritten confession. But Alvarez said his confession contained no significant details of the crime.
Alvarez said her office would begin a cold-case investigation into the murder, working with the Park Forest Police Department.
An attorney for Abernathy was not immediately available for comment. ..Source.. by Mary Wisniewski
February 12, 2015
Illinois man freed by DNA after 29 years' imprisonment for murder
March 25, 2010
DNA testing exonerates Florida man convicted of 1983 murder
3-25-2010 Florida:
Anthony Caravella, 41, spent 26 years in prison for a rape and slaying. He was 15 years old when charged.
Reporting from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. - Final DNA test results exonerate a Florida man who has served 26 years in prison -- more than half his life -- for a rape and murder, attorneys said Wednesday.
Broward County prosecutors will ask a judge Thursday to throw out Anthony Caravella's conviction and life sentence, freeing him of restrictions imposed since he was temporarily released from prison Sept. 10.
"I never had any doubt that Anthony was innocent," said Diane Cuddihy, the public defender who worked for nine years to free him.
"The shocking thing is that an innocent man can be convicted like this."
Caravella was 15 and had an IQ of 67, well below normal, when he was charged with the Nov. 5, 1983, murder of Ada Cox Jankowski, 58, in Miramar, Fla.
"It's over," Caravella said in a phone call minutes after he learned of the DNA results. "I'm OK now."
Broward County prosecutors took the unusual step of temporarily releasing Caravella six months ago when earlier tests seemed to clear him. But he had to wear a GPS ankle monitor and obey a curfew while prosecutors did more forensic testing.
"I feel good, man, because I've never been free all this time," Caravella said. "When they let me walk out that [prison] door, I was free but I wasn't free because it was all hanging over my head. Now I'll be really free."
He turns 42 on Saturday, the first birthday he will celebrate in freedom since he was 15.
Prosecutor Carolyn McCann, who handled the new appeal since 2001, said Wednesday that a second independent lab had ruled out Caravella as the source of genetic evidence found on the victim. ..Source.. Paula McMahon
January 25, 2010
Man cleared of 1981 rape wins $7.5 million settlement
1-25-2010 Kansas:
MANHATTAN, Kan. | An attorney for a man who spent 10 years in prison for a rape he didn't commit says his client wants his case to make a difference and improve the quality of justice in the state.
Eddie James Lowery was convicted in 1981 of raping an Ogden woman. About 20 years later, Lowery enlisted attorney Barry Clark to clear his name and old evidence was found and tested with new technology.
Manhattan and Riley County, along with their insurance companies, have reached a $7.5 million settlement with Lowery.
Clark says Lowery "believes strongly that the pain he endured should have a purpose."
His arrest, conviction, imprisonment and 10 post-release years on a state sex offender list cost him his first marriage and strained his relationship with his first child. ..Source.. KansasCity.com
November 14, 2009
WI- Inmate freed after serving 6 years for sex assault he didn't commit
11-14-2009 Wisconsin:
by WKOWTV.com
MADISON (WKOW) -- A ruling by a Dane County judge will free a man who served more than six years after being wrongly convicted on sexual assault charges.
Judge Patrick Fiedler ordered 45-year-old Forest Shomberg of Middleton released from prison Friday.
The judge made the decision after reviewing new DNA evidence and new research on faulty eyewitness identification. He overturned his own judgment of conviction in the 2002 case.
Shomberg had been convicted of second-degree sexual assault and sentenced to 12 years.
The victim was a University of Wisconsin-Madison freshman who was grabbed from behind and forced into a dark alleyway. The attacker groped her through her pantyhose.
Even touching clothes can leave DNA. New testing showed that four samples of male DNA were found on the pantyhose, but none matched Shomberg. ..Source..
September 9, 2009
FL- DNA to free man jailed for 26 years
9-9-2009 Florida:
Anthony Caravella, whose rape and murder conviction has been contradicted by DNA evidence, is scheduled to be released Wednesday.
The Broward State Attorney's Office asked for Anthony Caravella to be temporarily released Tuesday. And a Broward Circuit Court judge ordered him freed immediately.
But after close to 26 years in prison for a 1983 rape and murder that his attorney says he has been exonerated of by DNA testing, a last-minute hitch meant Caravella had to spend another night in the Broward County Jail.
DNA results, released last week, excluded Caravella, 41, as the source of forensic evidence found on the victim, Ada Cox Jankowski, 58, who was slain in Miramar.
But because he is still technically a convicted sex offender, the Florida Department of Children & Families had to conduct an evaluation of him under the Jimmy Ryce Act, a law used to monitor released sex offenders.
Unbelievable, they know he is innocent and they still try to civilly commit him, based on a misconstruction of the law!
The release order, signed by Judge Mily Rodriguez-Powell, was walked over to the main jail by Caravella's public defender, Diane Cuddihy, at 5 p.m. But Caravella couldn't be released because no one from DCF's evaluation team was available to see him after office hours, Cuddihy said.
Cuddihy told The Sun Sentinel that Caravella was ``disappointed but smiling'' when she explained the reason for the delay. ``It's frustrating,'' she said.
Prosecutor Carolyn McCann said Caravella's release was ``the right thing to do'' given new scientific evidence that turned up the genetic profile of an unidentified man as the source of the DNA. Prosecutors said Caravella should be temporarily freed while they investigate.
Cuddihy also filed court documents Tuesday asking for Caravella's conviction to be vacated and for him to be freed permanently. Writing that his conviction was undermined by the DNA, she also highlighted new evidence that raises yet more questions about the original investigation.
She cited new witness testimony that may shed light on why Caravella, who was 15 at the time of the crime and has an IQ of 67, confessed. Over the period of a week, he gave police five confused statements that contradicted the physical evidence in some ways and coincided with it in others.
Caravella was arrested on Dec. 28, 1983, two months after Jankowski's body was found on the grounds of Miramar Elementary School.
`VERY ANGRY'
In statements made public Tuesday, Caravella's friend, Dawn Simone, told the defense that Miramar police beat, pushed and slapped Caravella to get him to confess, and threatened to prosecute Simone if he did not tell them about the murder.
``[Simone] stated that the police were very angry and very threatening. She also heard yelling and what she believed to be the police hitting the defendant coming from the interrogation room,'' Cuddihy wrote. Afterward, Simone saw Caravella.
``[Caravella] advised Ms. Simone that she was in a lot of trouble and that he was sorry and he would help her,'' Cuddihy wrote. Later that night, Caravella gave his first recorded statement to police and said he saw the crime being committed by three other juveniles.
Simone was released that evening and was not charged. She was not called to testify in the trial.
On a later date, police picked up Dawn Simone again and told her Caravella agreed to talk if he could see her. They had a face-to-face meeting and Caravella gave more incriminating statements to police, Cuddihy wrote.
Miramar police spokeswoman Tania Rues said the department is examining the 1983 case, and that no prior claims were made that Caravella was hit.
EVIDENCE ISSUE
Also included in the court filing Tuesday is an allegation that one of the officers, William Mantesta, now retired, and the trial prosecutor Robert Carney, now a Broward Circuit judge, withheld evidence from the defense that at least raised questions about Caravella's guilt.
AUDIO TAPE
McCann, the prosecutor, found an audio tape in the file kept by Carney, her predecessor on the case, and gave it to Cuddihy in 2002.
The audio recorded a Jan. 17, 1984, phone conversation on a police department line of another juvenile, Jorge Delgado, telling Mantesta he killed the woman with Caravella. Delgado died years later.
``Detective Mantesta asked Delgado if he understood what he was saying. When Delgado answered affirmatively, Detective Mantesta advised Delgado that he would immediately come to his home. Despite knowing that the conversation was being taped, Detective Mantesta did not engage Delgado in further conversation and rushed him off the phone,'' Cuddihy wrote.
Efforts to reach Mantesta were unsuccessful.
Judge Carney answered some background questions about the case.
However, he said that judicial rules prevent him from commenting on details because the case is still pending. ..Source.. by PAULA McMAHON, Sun Sentinel
