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View Full Version : Neil Miller / 9.5 years Wrongfully Imprisoned


wheezer
05-10-2008, 10:34 AM
Neil Miller was convicted of aggravated rape while armed and breaking and entering with intent to commit a felony on December 19, 1990, in Boston, Massachusetts. He was sentenced to twenty-six to forty-five years in prison.

A man brandishing a screwdriver forced his way into the victim's apartment where he robbed and raped her vaginally and forced her to perform oral sex. The victim picked Miller's photo out of a mug book after he had been convicted of a non-sexual crime. Miller's conviction rested almost entirely on the eyewitness testimony of the victim. His defense at trial was mistaken identification. Miller claimed that he had never seen the victim before or been in her apartment.

A scientist from the Boston Police Crime Laboratory testified at trial that semen stains were found on the victim's bedding with B and H blood group substances. A vaginal swab with semen contained H blood group substances. Both the victim and Neil Miller are type O secretors, so the testing did not eliminate him. PGM testing was done on the bed sheet and no PGM was found. Neil Miller was PGM-1 and the victim was PGM 2-1. No PGM testing was done on the swabs.

The Innocence Project opened Miller's case in 1998. The vaginal swabs and smears from the initial evidence was located and sent to Forensic Science Associates. FSA's test results definitively excluded Neil Miller from being the source of spermatozoa found. Neil Miller, after over nine unjust years in prison, was exonerated and released in 2000.
Neil Miller
Neil Miller

Incident Year: 1990

Jurisdiction: MA

Charge: Rape, Robbery

Conviction: Agg. Rape, Agg. Robbery

Sentence: 26 - 45 Years


Year of Conviction: 1990

Exoneration Date: 5/10/00

Sentence Served: 9.5 Years

Real perpetrator found? Yes

Contributing Causes: Eyewitness Misidentification

Compensation? Yes


http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/218.php

wheezer
05-10-2008, 10:35 AM
Neil Miller spent almost the entire 1990s in Massachusetts prison for a rape he didn’t commit before DNA testing proved his innocence and led to his exoneration on May 10, 2000. Tomorrow, he marks the eighth anniversary of his release.

Miller is one of more than 160 exonerees whose wrongful convictions were caused, at least in part, by eyewitness misidentification. The victim in Miller’s case identified him in a book of mug shots, and again at trial. He claimed his innocence throughout the ordeal but was convicted and sentenced to 26-45 years.


http://innocenceprojectbournemouth.com/innocence-project-usa/massachusetts-man-marks-eight-years-of-freedom/

Roamer
05-10-2008, 10:42 AM
:1222423:

packy
05-10-2008, 01:28 PM
How sad.

And surely in some of these eye-witness ID cases the accused must have had some witnesses to corrobate alibis etc.