Wednesday, December 07, 2011

VA Man Exonerated After 27 Years

Or one of the reasons I'm opposed to capital punishment.

A Virginia court decided that Thomas Haynesworth had been mistakenly imprisoned for 27 years for rapes he did not commit. Haynesworth was arrested on his way to the grocery store when a woman who had been raped days before identified him as her attacker. He was 18 at the time. Haynesworth's break came when authorities tested semen collected at one of the 1984 rapes, and the DNA evidence cleared him and pointed to another man who had already been convicted of rape. “I am very happy,” said Haynesworth. “Me and my family can finally put this behind us, and I can go on with my life. And I can finally vote.”

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