{"id":179,"date":"2022-08-26T08:43:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-26T08:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/falseallegationshub.com\/?p=179"},"modified":"2024-03-12T23:47:39","modified_gmt":"2024-03-12T23:47:39","slug":"man-wrongfully-convicted-of-new-orleans-rape-as-a-teen-is-exonerated-decades-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/falseallegationshub.com\/?p=179","title":{"rendered":"Man wrongfully convicted of New Orleans rape as a teen is exonerated decades later"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sullivan Walter, 53, with, left to right, his brothers Joseph Walter and Byron Walter Sr, and Innocence Project New Orleans legal director Richard Davis. Photograph: Travis Spradling\/AP<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judge Darryl Derbigny expressed anger that blood and semen evidence that could have cleared Sullivan Walter never made it to to the jury<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

NEW ORLEANS \u2014 A Black man wrongfully convicted as a teenager for a New Orleans rape more than 36 years ago was ordered freed Thursday after a judge threw out his conviction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sullivan Walter, now 53, used a handkerchief to wipe away tears as a state district judge formally vacated his conviction for a home-invasion rape. Judge Darryl Derbigny expressed anger that blood and semen evidence that could have cleared him never made it to to the jury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo say this was unconscionable is an understatement,\u201d Derbigny told Walter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After appearing in court in New Orleans, Walter was driven to Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel, where he was officially released.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

District Attorney Jason Williams\u2019 office joined with defense attorneys working with Innocence Project New Orleans, a criminal justice advocacy group, to have the conviction vacated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walter was 17 when he was arrested in connection with the New Orleans rape. The rapist had entered the home of the victim, identified in the record as L.S., in May 1986, held a knife to her throat and threatened to harm her 8-year-old son, who slept through the incident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emily Maw, an attorney with Williams\u2019 office, outlined the problems in the case in court, noting there were reasons to believe the victim, the only witness, had mistakenly identified Walter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere were some red flags that the eyewitness testimony could well have been unreliable,\u201d Maw told Derbigny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those \u201cred flags\u201d had been spelled out in a joint filing by the defense and prosecutors ahead of Thursday\u2019s hearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn this case, L.S. was being asked to make a cross-racial identification of someone who at all the times that she could observe him was either masked, in an unlit room at night, and\/or threatening her not to look at him. In addition, L.S. was not shown a photo array containing Mr. Walter until over six weeks after the crime,\u201d the motion said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More significantly, no evidence was presented about Walter\u2019s blood characteristics that did not match the semen collected from the victim after the rape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The filing also recounts years of errors by Walter\u2019s previous attorneys, including failing to point out conflicting statements by a police officer who worked on the case and missteps during the appeal process regarding the blood and semen evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he was cleared Thursday, Walter had been serving a total sentence of 39 years \u2014 four for a burglary charge unrelated to the rape case, and 35 years for multiple charges in the rape case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attorneys said the victim in the rape is now deceased. Maw said in court that authorities had reached out to the victim\u2019s son, who was not present, and that he had expressed regret on behalf of his mother about the wrongful conviction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Innocence Project New Orleans Legal Director Richard Davis said Walter\u2019s race was a factor in the wrongful conviction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe lawyers and law enforcement involved acted as if they believed that they could do what they chose to a Black teenager from a poor family and would never be scrutinized or held to account,\u201d Davis said in a written statement. \u201cThis is not just about individuals and their choices, but the systems that let them happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NBC News<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sullivan Walter, 53, with, left to right, his brothers Joseph Walter and Byron Walter Sr, and Innocence Project New Orleans legal director Richard Davis. Photograph: Travis Spradling\/AP Judge Darryl Derbigny expressed anger that blood and semen evidence that could have cleared Sullivan Walter never made it to to the jury NEW ORLEANS \u2014 A Black man […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":180,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,32,35,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-false-rape-allegations","category-innocence-project","category-usa-cases-by-country","category-wrongful-convictions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/falseallegationshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/falseallegationshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/falseallegationshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/falseallegationshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/falseallegationshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=179"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/falseallegationshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":184,"href":"https:\/\/falseallegationshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179\/revisions\/184"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/falseallegationshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/falseallegationshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/falseallegationshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/falseallegationshub.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}