Thursday, February 19, 2004
DNA testing has led to freedom for 140 men across the country mistakenly convicted of crimes. In North Carolina, Darryl Hunt is the third person whose conviction was overturned after DNA testing. Charges against a fourth man, convicted of rape, were dismissed last month.
Ronald Cotton was convicted in 1985 and again in 1987 in the rapes of two Burlington women in July 1984. In 1995, after he had served 11 years of a life sentence, DNA testing showed that he was not the source of the semen evidence. Another suspect identified through DNA confessed, and Cotton was released and pardoned. A woman who misidentified Cotton lives in Winston-Salem. She is a frequent public speaker about the dangers of eyewitness identification.
Lesly Jean, a former Marine, was convicted in 1982 in the rape of a Jacksonville woman. The conviction was overturned in 1991 because at trial the prosecutors had withheld evidence that the police had used hypnosis to help the victim identify her attacker. It wasn't until 2001 that DNA testing showed that Jean was not the rapist. Gov. Mike Easley pardoned him that year.
Leo DeWitt Waters served 21 years in prison in the 1981 rape of a Jacksonville woman. He asked the court to review his case, and in January 2003, DNA testing cleared him of the rape. The court ordered a new trial, and last month the district attorney in Onslow County dismissed charges against Waters. His conviction has not been overturned, and his attorney said he would ask the governor for a pardon.