Clyde Charles Dies~One of the first men exonerated

[wheezer]

La. man exonerated by DNA testing dies at age 55

Clyde Charles, the first inmate to use a federal civil rights law to sue for DNA testing that not only cleared him of a Louisiana rape conviction but also sent his brother to prison for the same crime, has died. He was 55.

Charles died Jan. 7 of natural causes at his home on Shrimper's Row, relatives told The Courier newspaper in Houma, La. His health problems included diabetes that required dialysis, they said.

He was the first inmate to sue under the federal Civil Rights Act to get his DNA compared to DNA samples held as evidence, said Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project, a legal center specializing in wrongful conviction cases.

After Charles was sentenced to life in prison for the 1981 rape of a nurse who identified him as her attacker, he pleaded with authorities to conduct DNA testing against evidence collected in the case.

Although investigators had semen samples from the victim as evidence, the technology to compare DNA samples didn't exist during Charles' trial.

"Back then you didn't have DNA evidence, so you had to take the word of the victim and work with the evidence you had," then-Detective Jerry Larpenter told The Associated Press in a 2000 interview.

Terrebonne Parish authorities agreed to have Charles' DNA tested after Scheck, a former O.J. Simpson defense attorney, filed the civil rights lawsuit in 1999. When the DNA samples didn't match, Charles was soon exonerated and released from prison just before Christmas that year.

The investigation then focused on his brother, Marlo.

During Clyde Charles' trial, Marlo Charles testified he had been near the crime scene (the brothers had been drinking at a nearby Houma home) and a court document named him as an alternate suspect. Marlo Charles' DNA was on file in Virginia; authorities confirmed in 2000 that his DNA matched the Louisiana evidence.

Marlo Charles was convicted of the nurse's rape in 2002 and sentenced to life in prison.

Clyde Charles had a very tough life after his release from prison, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, nightmares, and terrible pain from his diabetes, Scheck said in a telephone interview Tuesday.

In early 2003, Charles was arrested on a charge that he had stabbed one of his other brothers, but was released on $100,000 bail for intensive drug rehabilitation. That case was continued indefinitely in a deal brokered with state prosecutors.

"I wish I could tell you they lived happily ever after. But they didn't," Scheck said.

A memorial service is planned for Saturday in Houma.

Survivors include five brothers and four sisters.

http://www.kansascity.com/440/story/979512.html

It isn't shocking he had a hard time. After being in prison for that long he became a part of the mindset. Add to that his own brother let him sit in prison for 17 years for a crime he committed. What a horrible situation. Now he is gone at the age of 55 and he didn't even get all those years. Technically he only got 38 of them if you subtract the 17 he spent in prison.
I don't understand why these stories don't make major headlines. They usually only appear in or on local news, or on the Innocence Project website. Yet, these men who have been exonerated are victims. I think so many people just think "Oh well", and move on.

[packy]

It seems that way, Wheezer. Until it hits one of us then we won't think in terms of oh well.

May he rest in peace now.

[annalyzer]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/burden/profiles/charles.html

On March 12, 1981, a 26-year-old white female nurse was walking along a road near Houma, La., looking for help after her car broke down when she was accosted and raped by a black man. He grabbed her by the neck and dragged her from the road to the side of some buildings. He punched her in the face, bit her, and ordered her to take off her pants, stockings, and underwear. He raped her and repeatedly choked her and hit her head with a pipe. After the rape, she ran away and was picked up by a police officer, who took her to Terrebonne General Hospital and then went to look for the perpetrator.

At the time, Clyde Charles, a black 27-year-old shrimp fisherman, was leaving a bar in Houma, La., where he had been with his brother Marlo. The police officer spotted Clyde, whom he had seen hitchhiking just an hour before the rape and had ordered off the road. He picked up Clyde and brought him to the hospital where the victim identified him as her assailant.

Clyde was tried by an all-white jury of 10 women and two men. The prosecution's evidence included the victim's identification and her testimony that the rapist called himself "Clyde." A criminalist testified that two Caucasian hairs on Clyde's shirt were microscopically similar (but not conclusively identical) to hair from the victim's head. The police officer testified that Clyde had been wearing a dark jogging jacket with white stripes when he saw him outside the bar, corroborating the victim's description of her assailant's dark jogging suit with stripes. The officer also testified that Clyde had been wearing a red cap and blue jacket tied around his neck when he saw him hitchhiking. A red baseball hat and blue jean jacket were found near the scene of the rape.

On June 22, 1982, the jury found Clyde guilty of aggravated rape. He was sentenced to life in prison at Louisiana's state penitentiary at Angola.

[annalyzer]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/case/interviews/charles.html



Update on the Story of Clyde Charles
See what's happened to Clyde Charles in the three years since FRONTLINE first reported his story. An update on his life and struggles is part of FRONTLINE's April 2003 report, "The Burden of Innocence."


What do you remember of the night you were arrested?

Interview with Clyde Charles, imprisoned at Angola State Prison, Louisiana for 18 years. He proclaimed his innocence in a rape case, but for nearly a decade his requests for DNA testing were ignored by the state. After his case was taken up by Barry Scheck and the Innocence Project, a DNA test was finally agreed upon. In November 1999 the tests came back negative for Charles and on December 17, 1999 he was released from Angola.

It was March 12, 1981. A friend and I went out to bars after work. Then my ride forgot, and left without me. My brother was with me. We started walking home. . . We called another brother to get a ride, but he couldn't do it. So I kept on walking. I stopped at a friend's house, then left around 4:30 in the morning, walking down Highway 57 again. I stopped at a cousin's house, then kept walking. From my cousin's house, I could see the area where the crime took place. I didn't see any police officers. I didn't see anything in that area. Then I moved on, kept walking.

How did you come to be picked up by the police?

It was around 4:30 in the morning. I started hitchhiking. Then I encountered a police officer. He stopped for me on the side of the road, and asked me to put my hands on the hood of the car. He had a gun drawn, and I said, "What's all this about?" He says, "Shut up. Just do what I tell you to do." So I did. I put my hands on the car. He frisked me. He put me in handcuffs and threw me in the back of his car. And I'm saying, "What is this about? You got to tell me something." He said, "Shut up. You'll find out when you get there." Now I'm afraid for my life, because this man just picked me, and I know I didn't do anything. So I called this man all kind of things. After that, he finally told me that a woman got raped, and he's charging me with aggravated rape.

What happened next?

[annalyzer]

http://kbzenews.blogspot.com/2009/01/clyde-charles-passes.html

Tuesday, January 13, 2009
CLYDE CHARLES PASSES



A Houma native who enjoyed just eight years of freedom after serving nearly two decades of his life in Angola for a crime he did not commit, died peacefully in his home last Wednesday.

Clyde Alton Charles, 55, of Shrimper’s Row, just off Grand Caillou, died peacefully on Jan 7, according to his sister, Lois Charles Hill of Thibodaux.

She, together with her bothers – Octave, Wilfred, Arnold, Leo and Marlo, and her sisters, Wilberine Charles Theriot, Rochelle Charles Abrams, and Trudy Charles, worked from March of 1981 to December of 1999, to get their brother freed from having been accused and convicted of a raping a white female, also from Houma.