PDA

View Full Version : Ernest Sonnier, 46, spent 23 Years in Prison - Freed after DNA Test


packy
08-08-2009, 09:51 AM
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32334521/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

"HOUSTON - A man who spent 23 years in prison for a kidnapping and rape that DNA tests show he may not have committed was released on bond Friday to his joyful family.

State district Judge Michael McSpadden asked for an expedited release for Ernest Sonnier, 46, who was convicted of a 1985 sexual assault and sentenced to life in prison. The Innocence Project, a national organization working to exonerate wrongfully convicted people, began conducting new tests last year that cast doubt on his guilt, attorneys said.

Sonnier was released on his own recognizance. He will wear a GPS monitoring device and be supervised as a condition of his release while attorneys move to have him officially exonerated." (More at Link)

Roamer
08-08-2009, 10:00 AM
I feel so sorry for the many people who have been wrongfully convicted, and so glad DNA is setting them free. Finally.

LiveLaughLuv
08-08-2009, 10:54 AM
Most spend half their adult lives in prison before being set free...

How incredibly sad....

packy
08-08-2009, 11:02 AM
From the article. "Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project, said this week that misleading testimony from a crime lab analyst that favored the prosecution and unreliable eyewitness identification put Sonnier behind bars.

The victim of the 1985 attack identified Sonnier, who was 23 at the time, nearly six months afterward. But Scheck said tests showed that semen stains on the woman's jeans were blood type O, while Sonnier's blood type is B." (How could they miss that?)