Acting at the recommendation of a special state innocence commission — the only one of its kind in the nation — a panel of North Carolina judges ruled Wednesday that a man was wrongfully convicted of murdering a prostitute in 1991 and freed him after 16 years in prison.
The three-judge panel found “clear and convincing evidence” that the man, Gregory F. Taylor, was innocent and had been convicted based on flawed evidence and unreliable testimony.
It was the first case won by the commission, which was established in 2006 after a wave of embarrassing wrongful convictions in North Carolina.
Celebrating with friends and family over a shrimp salad at a cafe in downtown Raleigh, Mr. Taylor said he was still in shock after “6,149 days in prison.”
“This morning, I was laying in a jail cell with a crazy person banging on the wall next to me,” he said. “Now I’m sitting at a fancy Italian restaurant talking on a cellphone.”
After the verdict, the Wake County district attorney, C. Colon Willoughby Jr., apologized to Mr. Taylor.
“I told him I’m very sorry he was convicted,” Mr. Willoughby told The Associated Press. “I wish we had had all of this evidence in 1991.”
The eight-member North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission considers claims of innocence from convicts or anyone else with pertinent information. It has reviewed hundreds of claims by prisoners and brought only three to a hearing. If the commission agrees that a claim has merit, it refers cases to a three-judge panel, which has happened only once except for Mr. Taylor’s case, and the argument in the other case was rejected.
In most states, convictions are usually overturned only by governors and pardon boards, or occasionally by judicial review. Inmate advocates used the ruling for Mr. Taylor to renew their call for others states to create commissions to investigate claims of innocence, even years after ordinary statutes of limitation have expired.
“North Carolina’s commission is an important model for the adjudication of innocence claims,” said Barry C. Scheck, director of the Innocence Project in New York. “In the American court system, there are normally procedural bars that get in the way of litigating whether someone is innocent or not.”
Much national attention has been focused to using DNA to overturn wrongful convictions, said Stephen B. Bright, director of the Southern Center for Human Rights. But 90 percent of criminal cases, like Mr. Taylor’s, do not involve any DNA evidence.
Mr. Taylor, 47, has always maintained that he did not murder Jacquetta Thomas, whose battered body was discovered in a cul-de-sac in Raleigh. He testified that he found the body while taking drugs with a friend but did not report it to the police.
Defense lawyers argued that prosecutors misrepresented evidence against Mr. Taylor, who was sentenced to life in prison in 1993. They said that stains on his truck turned out to not have been human blood, and that witnesses were later proven to have described scenarios that could not have happened.
Libération Monde 18/02/2010 à 07h34
Innocenté et libéré après 17 ans de prison
Un Américain de Caroline du Nord (sud-est) qui a passé près de 17 ans en prison pour meurtre a été libéré et innocenté mercredi, grâce à une commission exceptionnelle qui enquête sur les cas litigieux dans cet Etat depuis 2006.
Des explosions de joie se sont fait entendre dans la salle du tribunal lorsque Greg Taylor et ses proches se sont serrés dans les bras après la décision de la cour. Le procureur du comté de Wake, Colon Willoughby, a alors traversé la salle d’audience pour serrer la main de Greg Taylor et s’est excusé pour sa condamnation injuste.
Greg Taylor, 47 ans, est le premier homme à être innocenté par la Commission d’enquête sur l’innocence de Caroline du Nord, seul organe géré par les autorités aux Etats-Unis qui enquête sur les proclamations d’innocence après une condamnation.
Un panel de trois juges est parvenu à la décision unanime de libérer Greg Taylor après avoir examiné l’affaire pendant une semaine, suite à une enquête de la Commission créée par les parlementaires de l’Etat en août 2006.
«Ordre est donné que la libération réclamée par Gregory F. Taylor soit accordée et que l’accusation de meurtre à l’encontre de Gregory F. Taylor soit annulée», a dit le juge Howard Manning qui présidait l’audience.
Greg Taylor avait été condamné en avril 1993 pour le meurtre de Jacquetta Thomas le 26 septembre 1991. Ses avocats ont fait valoir qu’aucun élément matériel ne le liait à la victime et ont mis en doute les témoignages qui l’accusaient.
Selon le statut de la Commission, un condamné ne peut être innocenté que si le panel de trois juges parvient à une décision à l’unanimité.
(Source AFP)