Wrongly Convicted Database Record

 

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Larry Johnson

 

Charge:

"Rape, Robbery, Kidnapping (abduction) and Sexual Assault"

Sentence:

Life Imprisonment

Years Imprisoned:

18

Year Crime:

1984

Year Convicted:

1984

Year Cleared:

2002

U.S. State or Country of Crime:

Missouri

County or Region of Crime:

St. Louis

City of Crime:

St. Louis

Result:

Judicially Exonerated Released

Summary of Case:

"Larry Johnson was wrongly convicted of the 1984 rape, robbery and kidnapping of a white woman based largely on her eyewitness misidentification of him as her assailant. Immediately after the attack that lasted two hours, she described her attacker to police as a clean shaven black man, and she later identified Johnson even though he had a mustache and otherwise didn't match her description. Johnson unwaveringly proclaimed his innocence and all of his appeals failed. In 1995 he contacted the Innocence Project in NY to have the physical evidence collected from the victim analyzed. Johnson overcome years of opposition by the prosecutors to the testing when the Oklahoma Sup. Ct. adopted a rule in Feb. 2001 effective Sept 1, 2001 that permitted consideration of motions for postconviction DNA testing . Johnson submitted a motion requesting DNA testing of the surviving evidence. Initially the prosecution said the evidence couldn't be located, but at it was, the tests commenced in July 2002. On July 26, 2002 the Innocence Project was notified by an AP reporter that the prosecutor had scheduled a press conference to announce that Johnson had been excluded by the tests as the attacker. After fighting the tests for years, the prosecutor didn't have the class to acknowledge to Mr. Johnson that he had 18 years stolen from him by being imprisoned for a heinous crime he didn't commit. If the prosecution had been successful in their efforts to block the testing, Mr. Johnson's innocence would have never been proven and he would have been another innocent person to die in prison. Johnson filed a federal civil rights lawsuit that was dismissed. Johnson was awarded wrongful imprisonment compensation of $327,650 by the State of Missouri in 2008."

Conviction Caused By:

"False eyewitness identification by the victim who had described her attacker to police as a clean shaven black man and then erroneously fingered Johnson, even though he had a mustache."

Innocence Proved By:

Post-conviction DNA testing.

Defendant Aided By:

"One of the lawyers was Cheryl Pilate of Kansas City, MO."

Compensation Awarded:

"$327,650 (State of Missouri, 2008)"

Was Perpetrator Identified?

Age When Imprisoned:

27

Age When Released:

45

Sex:

Male

Skin/Ethnicity:

Black

Information Source 1:

"DNA exonerates man jailed in 1984, Associated Press, July 31, 2002"

Information Location 1:

Information Source 2:

Innocence Project database

Information Location 2:

http://www.innocenceproject.org/case/display_profile.php?id=109

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Innocents Database Created and Maintained by Hans Sherrer innocents@forejustice.org

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