LA - Sullivan Walter, 53, freed after 36 years in prison for wrongful rape conviction - 8/26/22

[Bishop Black]

Man Wrongfully Convicted of New Orleans Rape Freed After 36 Years in Jail

On Thursday, a New Orleans man was ordered immediately released from prison after 36 years of incarceration for a 1986 home invasion-rape he did not commit, the longest wrongful incarceration of a minor in Louisiana state history, according to Innocence Project New Orleans

people.com

A New Orleans man was ordered immediately released from prison after 36 years of incarceration for a home invasion-rape he did not commit.

On Thursday, the Innocence Project New Orleans and the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office's motion to have Sullivan Walter's conviction vacated due to withheld physical evidence and poor testimony was accepted by state district judge Darryl Derbigny, according to the Associated Press and The Times Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate.

Walter, now 53, was 17 when he was arrested in connection to the rape, which happened in May 1986, according to an IPNO press release obtained by PEOPLE. Walter was prosecuted as an adult for the crime, according to IPNO.

IPNO successfully argued before Judge Derbigny that results of that testing were not presented at Walter's original trial or motions for new hearings "due to a combination of his trial attorney's failure to effectively elicit this evidence from relevant witnesses and due to misrepresentations made by the police officer analyst who examined the seminal fluid in this case."

 

[MadMcGoo]

That’s quite a sentence for a 17 year old!

 

[MadMcGoo]

Black man wrongfully convicted of rape at 17 released from prison, now 53

Sullivan Walter was wrongfully convicted as a teenager for a New Orleans rape more than 36 years ago. He was finally freed this week after a judge threw out his conviction.

www.fox9.com

In this case, L.S. (The victim) 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," the motion said.

More significantly, no evidence was presented about Walter's blood characteristics that did not match the semen collected from the victim after the rape.

The filing also recounts years of errors by Walter’s 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.

 

[beubeubeu]

Wow. Wow. Just WOW. So many cases of not only rapes but attempted murders with lots of evidence, confident whitnesses and prior criminal records ended up with something idiotic like 18 months or early release after 2 years, and here a minor spend THIRTY SIX YEARS IN PRISON with essentially no evidence. I have no words.