Virginia’s Supreme Court has moved quickly to declare Keith Harward innocent. DNA evidence recently showed he was not guilty of murder and rape -- crimes for which he served more than 30 years. As Sandy Hausman reports, the case is just one of many that relied on evidence no longer seen as reliable.
Keith Harward was convicted of a rape and murder in 1982. DNA testing was not possible at the time, but the prosecutor relied on other forensic evidence – inaccurate blood typing and bite marks found on the victim.
“There wasn’t just one bite mark examiner in this case," says Brandon Garrett, a professor of law at the University of Virginia.
"There were several who all said that the bite mark had to have come from him. What makes it even more amazing is that they did bite molds of the thousand or so of Navy sailors on this ship which was docked where the murder took place, and initially they said none of them did it. They said Harward didn’t do it, and neither did another man who was the actual culprit.”
That man, Jerry Crotty, died in an Ohio prison in 2006. His guilt and Harward’s innocence were recently proven by a DNA test, but Garrett says that’s not the end of the story. Prosecutors have long relied on forensic evidence which is now viewed as questionable.
“Before DNA was around, they did hair. They did blood typing. They did bite marks. They did shoe prints," Garrett recalls. "I think what we need, and more state crime labs are doing this, is to reopen any old cases to see if there are people like Harward who have been languishing in prison, and they were convicted based on flawed forensics, those cases should be reopened."
Harward and others who are wrongly convicted can petition the legislature for compensation or take their cases to court.
“You ask a juror what would you have paid not to be in prison for just one year if you were innocent, and they often say a million dollars a year,” Garrett says.
He has written a book on bogus forensic evidence and hopes to launch a website this spring, enabling the public to see just how many wrongful convictions have been overturned by DNA testing.