Keith Allen Harward spent more than 30 years behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit in part because prosecutors withheld DNA evidence that could’ve been used in his defense.
A. Barton Hinkle writes:
Swabs from the rape kit in Harward’s case included blood-type evidence that, his appeal says, “excluded Mr. Harward as the perpetrator.” But that evidence was “never provided Mr. Harward or his counsel. This information was not only suppressed but also falsely characterized as ‘inconclusive’ by the Commonwealth’s forensic expert at trial.”
As the Richmond Times-Dispatch‘s Frank Green has reported, the work of that expert—David Pomposini—also has been involved in another wrongful conviction case, concerning a man named Troy Webb. Webb spent eight years in prison for rape before DNA cleared him.
Harward and Webb are preceded by other well-known innocents set free long after conviction. Thomas Haynesworth spent 27 years in prison for rapes committed by another man. Earl Washington spent 17 years in prison for crimes that DNA proved he did not commit—including several years on death row and six more years even after his exoneration.
Still, that Harward’s lawyers never got to see evidence that could have kept another innocent man out of prison—while the guilty one went free—ought to chasten the members of the Virginia Supreme Court.
from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/23ES0UW
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