Legal Commentary

DNA Exonerates Another TX Defendant

By TChris

Can you imagine spending a quarter century in prison for crimes you didn't commit?

DNA testing last year showed Steven Phillips was innocent of a 1982 sexual assault and burglary. In January, additional testing found that DNA evidence from the rape matched another man, Sidney Alvin Goodyear, who died in prison about a dozen years ago.

Can you imagine, after being convicted despite your innocence, having to decide whether to maintain your innocence on related crimes, a stance likely to result in life imprisonment, or to plead guilty just for the chance to die outside of prison walls? [more ...]

Phillips, who is on parole and lives in a halfway house as part of his probation, still has an extensive criminal record because he pleaded guilty to nine related sex crimes over fear that he would receive a life sentence if convicted, his lawyer said. Prosecutors now believe those sex crimes were also committed by Goodyear.

The Innocence Project again deserves our gratitude for its tireless efforts to free the innocent.

Among those crimes to which he pleaded guilty was a string of assaults in which the perpetrator went into aerobics classes and at gunpoint forced women to undress and perform sexual acts.

About two years ago, an Innocence Project staffer found a 20-year-old newspaper story about a man who committed similar crimes at fitness centers. That man was Goodyear, who died in a Texas prison while serving a 45-year sentence for burglary of a habitation with intent to commit sexual assault with a deadly weapon.

A DNA test last summer excluded Phillips as the rapist from the May 1982 assault and subsequent testing earlier this year on a blood sample from Goodyear's autopsy revealed a match to the dead felon.

The Innocence Project "accuse[d] Dallas police of improperly focusing on Phillips and ignoring evidence that pointed to Goodyear, originally a suspect before police targeted Phillips."

DNA testing has proven the innocence of 18 Dallas County men since 2001, which is a national high, according to the Innocence Project. Texas leads the nation with 32 such exonerations.

This is a too-unusual instance in which the District Attorney's office deserves praise for its willingness to recognize a mistake.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on June 22, 2008 (boomark / email).