– Durham County District Attorney Roger Echols said Friday that he doesn’t plan to retry Darryl Anthony Howard, who was freed Wednesday after serving 21 years in prison for two murders he has consistently maintained he didn’t commit.
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But prosecutors decided not to appeal the judge’s order throwing out the conviction. Judge Orlando Hudson ordered him freed after hearing testimony on whether evidence could have proved Howard’s innocence was withheld by prosecutors and police.
“I am elated that Mr. Howard will be released for the first time in almost a quarter of a century”.
“A reasonable juror would find beyond reasonable doubt that here is a reasonable doubt to the guilt of Darryl Howard in these cases”, Hudson said before vacating the convictions Wednesday. His case was eventually taken up by the New York-based Innocence Project.
Ex-district attorney Mike Nifong had been expected to testify on Wednesday (31 August) about his handling of Howard’s case and whether misconduct from police and prosecutors helped secure a conviction.
A North Carolina man was freed from jail Wednesday after a judge tossed his conviction in a double-murder case tried 21 years ago by the prosecutor who was later disbarred for lying and misconduct in the Duke University lacrosse rape case.
The 54-year-old was sentenced to 80 years in prison for the 1991 murders of a mother and daughter but the judge said Howard’s defense had proven there was reasonable doubt Howard committed the crimes.
One legal observer in the courtroom said the Durham district attorney’s office may have chose to live with Hudson’s decision based on the DNA evidence to avoid presenting evidence of misconduct by the office during Nifong’s tenure. No other physical evidence connected him to the deaths.
The state Court of Appeals reversed Hudson’s ruling in April, however, ordering a hearing so that attorneys for the state could present evidence to show why the convictions against Howard should stand. Nifong repeated that claim despite a police memo in the prosecution’s files that contradicted him.
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