DNA tests fuel urgency to free the innocent
By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY
CARROLLTON, Texas — After spending nearly 27 years buried in the vast Texas
prison system for a crime he did not commit, Charles Chatman's first weeks of
freedom have been overwhelming.
Each of the six rooms in his new apartment, including the bathroom, is
larger than any of his previous cells. The gleaming entertainment system and sleek
laptop from family, friends and attorneys might as well be hollow props on a
movie set, because Chatman, 47, has little idea how to operate them —
testimony to more than a generation lost behind bars.
Chatman was exonerated last month by DNA testing while serving a 99-year
sentence for sexual assault. His release Jan. 3 marked the 15th such exoneration
in Dallas County during the past five years, the most of any county in the
nation. Aside from New York and Illinois, Dallas County also has produced more
exonerations than any state.
As DNA technology and investigations identify a mounting number of wrongful
convictions, the urgency to find others like Chatman is increasing. From
Virginia to California, local prosecutors, law students and defense attorneys are
combing through hundreds of thousands of old files in search of flawed
convictions.
Last week, two men were cleared of separate murder convictions in
Mississippi after new DNA testing led authorities to another man now charged in both
slayings. It was the first time post-conviction DNA testing had led to an
exoneration in Mississippi, one of eight states that does not have a law allowing
for such testing. Lawyers with the Innocence Project pushed the state to move
forward with the testing.

Since 1989, there have been 213 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the USA.
Of those, 149 came in the past seven years, according to the Innocence
Project, the parent organization of a far-flung network that helps prisoners
obtain DNA testing or other evidence that could prove their innocence.
Among efforts to ferret out the wrongfully convicted:
•In Virginia, officials are conducting a sweeping examination of more than
534,000 files, the largest such review in U.S. history. Three years and five
exonerations after the effort began, authorities have identified 2,215 more
cases they say are worthy of scrutiny.
"If we identified (only) one guy who shouldn't be in prison, would it be
worth it? I say yes," says Pete Marone, who as director of the state's
Department of Forensic Science is helping to direct the review.
•A team of attorneys and law students at California Western Law School, part
of the national Innocence Project network, fields up to 1,000 inmate
requests for help each year.
Jeff Chinn, assistant director of the Southern California Innocence Project,
says 5% to 10% of those requests are selected for further investigation.
Since the program began in 2000, five have been exonerated, including Timothy
Atkins, who was freed last year after serving 20 years in prison for a wrongful
murder conviction.
•In Arizona, volunteer lawyers, law students and investigators have screened
more than 2,500 cases in the past decade and secured one exoneration: Byron
Lacy, freed in 2003 after serving six years for killing a security guard and
wounding another man. About 20 other prisoners have won some kind of
post-conviction relief, such as a shorter sentence.
•In what may be the most aggressive move by a local prosecutor, Dallas
County District Attorney Craig Watkins has turned over more than 400 files to law
students working for the Innocence Project of Texas. The students are
reviewing decisions by previous administrations to reject requests for DNA testing.
Watkins, Dallas County's first African-American district attorney, says
opening the files may have been his easiest decision since being sworn in last
year, even in a state where politicians have a reputation for supporting
aggressive law-and-order policies.
"The reason I'm here is a result of what happened in the past," Watkins
says. He cites a tradition of aggressive prosecution in Dallas and routine
denials of prisoners' requests for post-conviction reviews, which he says shrouded
past errors. Those errors have emerged, Watkins says, largely because the
local forensics laboratory preserved the biological evidence at issue in many of
the recent challenges by prisoners.
For many places, a review of convictions such as that in Dallas County is
not possible because physical evidence has not been preserved. The lack of
uniform preservation standards is a big concern among advocates for
post-conviction challenges, says Peter Neufeld, co-founder of the Innocence Project.
But for Watkins, the available evidence offered "an opportunity to restore
the credibility of this office."
Judge takes interest in case
In 17 years on the bench, Dallas Judge John Creuzot has heard countless
defendants declare their innocence. But Chatman's 2001 application for
post-conviction DNA testing was different.
"I noticed the guy had been inside for a long, long time," Creuzot says. At
the time, Chatman had served 20 years of his 99-year sentence for rape.
It is rare for a prisoner to pursue a challenge after so long behind bars.
Creuzot thought of boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, freed after spending about
20 years in prison for the slayings of three men in New Jersey. Carter's case
inspired the movie Hurricane.
"Maybe it was the movie," the judge says. "Something about (Chatman's case)
caught me."
Chatman had lived in the same neighborhood as the rape victim. He was
nearing the end of a four-year term of probation for a 1978 burglary conviction
when she was attacked, and he was included in a police lineup of possible
suspects. The victim identified him as her attacker, and he was convicted in 1981.
As Creuzot reviewed the file, the possible existence of untested DNA
evidence and the identification of Chatman in the lineup — both among the most
common reasons for a wrongful conviction — seemed to demand more scrutiny.
Months later, during Chatman's first appearance in Creuzot's courtroom, the
judge says something else struck him, and raised questions about Chatman's
guilt. "I can just remember his face when he said: 'I didn't do this. I didn't
do this,' " he says.
A first attempt at DNA testing of the assailant's biological sample by the
Texas Department of Public Safety did not produce a result, according to a
chronology of the case prepared by the district attorney's office.
Chatman feared that further testing also would prove inconclusive and
consume the biological sample — and with it, any chance of exoneration. Chatman and
Michelle Moore, his attorney from the Innocence Project of Texas, asked that
additional analysis be suspended in 2004 until testing technology improved.
Moore says Chatman showed remarkable judgment — and patience — in seeking
the delay. "How many people would have done that?" she asks.
The opportunity for more reliable testing came last December, when the judge
ordered a new analysis using a method known as YSTR testing at Orchid
Cellmark Inc., in nearby Farmers Branch, Texas. The new testing allows for better
identification of male DNA profiles in samples in which female genetic
material often is present, says Robert Giles, Orchid Cellmark's executive director
of research and development.
Before ordering the test, Creuzot brought Chatman back to his office to see
whether he wished to go forward, knowing that the new test — if inconclusive —
likely would leave no more material to analyze.
"I asked him, 'Are you sure? This is it.' "
"Yes," Chatman responded. "I didn't do this."
At 8:30 a.m. on Jan. 2, weeks before results were due, the phone rang in
Creuzot's office. Chatman's DNA was "not a match." Creuzot summoned an anxious
Chatman from the county jail, where he was staying temporarily while awaiting
the results.
"I knew what the test should say, but I still had that little doubt,"
Chatman says. "I had been a hard-luck guy for a long time."
When Chatman arrived, Creuzot stuck out his hand and said: "Man, Happy New
Year!"
"He looked confused at first," the judge says. "I asked if he wanted to call
somebody; I handed him my phone. He had never used a cellphone before, so I
had to dial the number for him."
There was so much paperwork to process, Creuzot couldn't release Chatman
immediately, so he ordered a celebratory lunch.
"I asked what kind of steak he wanted; he didn't know what to say, except to
request that he wanted it 'cooked a lot,' " Creuzot says.
Chatman sat with the judge's 7-year-old son, Ethan, at a table in Creuzot's
locked courtroom. (Ethan, on a holiday break from school, had accompanied his
father to the office.) Chatman hadn't used a knife in years and began
tearing the meat with his hands.
Lunch was one small measure of the seismic change in Chatman's world — a
change Creuzot made official that day. He called the prison to inform the warden
that Chatman was not coming back.
A 'logistical nightmare'
Creuzot was instrumental in securing Chatman's release, but not all of the
wrongfully convicted have found similar advocates.
Lack of funding for post-conviction analysis, including DNA testing and
expert testimony, has hamstrung prisoner-assistance campaigns. The percentage of
overturned cases is small, and the challenges are daunting.
Virginia's Marone calls the historic effort there to review thousands of old
cases a "logistical nightmare."
The broad review, ordered more than two years ago by then-governor Mark
Warner, was triggered in part by the discovery of blood and other potential
biological evidence attached to old case files, some dating to 1973. The evidence
had never been disclosed. The state began reviewing all of the files from
1973 to 1988, the time period at issue.
Because the files were not automated during that time, much of the project
has required a hand-search of the documents in a labor-intensive and
increasingly expensive examination. Marone says the analysis has cost about $1.4
million, and money is running out.
Virginia and the cash-strapped Arizona Justice Project had hoped to win some
of the millions of dollars Congress set aside in 2006 to assist in DNA
testing. Late last year, USA TODAY disclosed that the Justice Department had not
distributed any of the money.
"That is wrong," Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy said last month at
a hearing to address the issue. "That is irresponsible."
The Justice Department, which pledges to resolve the problem, had said that
rules imposed by Congress made it difficult for states to qualify.
For example, the law requires that states' attorneys general compel police
departments to preserve biological evidence for testing. However, attorneys
general don't always have authority over the operations of all police agencies.
In Dallas County, much of the work to identify the wrongfully convicted is
falling to law students and volunteer lawyers. Crowded into a small jury room
in the Frank Crowley Courts Building, they leaf through thick case files,
some more than three decades old.
Many of the students, drawn from local law schools, get no formal credit for
the work. They work on all aspects of the cases, from re-interviewing
witnesses to ensuring that those who are freed have new clothing when they leave
prison.
Jessica Mines, 27, a second-year law student at Texas Wesleyan, says seeing
the release of a prisoner like Chatman is "priceless."
Considering a lawsuit
Since Chatman's release, he has traveled to Washington, where he was
welcomed at a Senate hearing and met briefly with Leahy, a vocal backer of
legislation to help free the wrongfully convicted.
Chatman is eligible for up to $50,000 per year from the state for each of
the 27 years of lost time. He is weighing a lawsuit over his incarceration and
will get the state money only if he decides not to sue.
His family and attorneys provide much of what he has — the apartment,
furniture and a new pickup. He earned a general educational development (GED)
certificate in prison and is considering enrolling in college, or pursuing a
career as a welder or auto mechanic.
For now, the new truck mostly sits in a parking space because he fears he'll
lose his way if he strays too far from his sprawling apartment complex. But
there are plenty of other options for life outside his cell.
"I can just go take a bath," he says, "and lay in the tub any time I want."
Contributing: Chris Joyner, The (Jackson, Miss.) Clarion-Ledger



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