A North Carolina man has walked free after spending 21 years behind bars for a double murder that new DNA evidence clearly indicated he did not commit.
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They have never been able to hug without her making an appointment first with prison officials and embraced so tightly that they both fell against the jailhouse wall. “I’m just happy right now”.
Darryl Howard, left, wipes away tears after Judge Orlando Hudson threw out Howard’s double-murder conviction Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2016, in a Durham County Courthouse courtroom, in Durham, N.C. The judge threw out the convictions and ordered Howards release because of DNA evidence unavailable at Howards 1995 murder trial.
“We are grateful that Judge Hudson ruled to release Mr. Howard, but this miscarriage of justice stole precious years of Mr. Howard’s life, and there is no way to return that lost time”.
The decision to drop the appeal means that former district attorney Mike Nifong, who was disbarred and jailed for his handling of the Duke University lacrosse case, will not be asked to testify about his handling of Howard’s case.
Howard credits Nannie with reaching out to lawyers around the country who work on wrongful conviction cases. The Durham prosecutor’s office said it would not appeal Judge Hudson’s ruling.
The 54-year-old is now serving an 80-year sentence in medium security at a Warren County prison. It wasn’t until a few years ago that Howard’s attorneys found a Durham police memo about an informant’s tip that the convicted killer’s attorney said wasn’t turned over before the murder trial, the Court of Appeals said.
At the time of the trial, prosecutors built a case against Mr Howard that relied on testimony from witnesses, including claims that he had had an argument with the mother some time before her death. The hearing then was scheduled to turn to Howard’s attorneys showing what they said was misconduct by police and prosecutors that helped win his conviction in 1995.
The Durham district attorney’s office on Wednesday opted against fighting Darryl Howard’s release based on improved DNA evidence after it became clear prosecutors would have to defend Mike Nifong’s handling of the case.
It would have “unearthed the skeletons in the district attorney’s office once again for the public to hear”, said Jamie Lau, an attorney with the Wrongful Convictions Clinic at the Duke University law school.
In the Duke lacrosse case, three athletes were accused of raping a stripper hired to entertain a team party. State investigators later determined Nifong lied and buried evidence proving the lacrosse players were innocent.
Advocates are tackling a massive review of convictions in a North Carolina county where one prosecutor was disbarred for misconduct in the Duke University lacrosse case and another was suspended for ethics violations. There was no physical evidence tying Howard to the strangling and sexual assault of 29-year-old Doris Washington and her 13-year-old daughter, Nishonda. Whoever did assault Nishonda hasn’t been identified.
DNA evidence presented at the 1991 trial showed Howard was not responsible for sexually assaulting Nishonda Washington before her murder. He was identified from DNA samples stored in a federal database, which was collected after Jones was sentenced to prison in Tennessee.
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Jones on Tuesday refused to answer questions from Howard’s attorneys, citing his constitutional right against incriminating himself.
