DNA Frees Black Alleged Rapist After 23 Years A Black Texas man sent to prison 23 years ago for rape, is now a free man, cleared by DNA evidence proving that he never sexually assaulted anybody. Jerry Evans is the 20^th Dallas man to be freed, thanks to science not available at the time of his conviction. “I knew it would come one day. I just didn’t know it was gonna be 23 years,” Evans said. Judge Thompson told Evans, who began his sentenced in March 1986, “On behalf of the citizens of the State of Texas, the court would like to apologize for the wrong that’s been done to you in this case.” Public Defender Michelle Moore attributes her client’s conviction to overzealous, perhaps even corrupt, police work. “The more that we know about the case, the more convinced I am that what was in the police report, the timeframe, is not what really happened,” she said. Dallas Co. District Attorney Craig Watkins, who has seen his share of overturned sentences, said this is a chance for the state to reexamine the process for sending people to prison. “This is an opportunity, with the 20th exoneration, for us to really, really, take a close look at what we’ve been doing for years and correct the mistakes of the past,” he said. Meanwhile, DNA evidence also confirmed that Vincent Draper, another man convicted and sentenced in Dallas County, did indeed sexually assault an 8-year-old child 24 years ago. Judge Carter Thompson ruled that he must remain in prison.

The fact that Troy Anthony Davis is about to be executed for murder even there’s no weapon, no fingerprints and not a single drop of DNA shows just how unfair the American system of justice is, says a growing number of high-profile leaders. The 39-year-old Georgia man is scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday night after being convicted of killing Savannah Police Officer Mark Allen MacPhail in 1989. But Davis’ case has drawn worldwide attention because of how skimpy the evidence is that sent him to the death chamber. Go here to learn about last minute calls to action to save Davis. Get more on the story here.

LA authorities offer $500,000 for info on serial killer. Somebody’s killing a lot of Black people in Los Angeles, and authorities are offering a half-million to anyone who can help them catch the murderer. The killings, which date back to 1985, occurred during two separate periods in the same South Los Angeles neighborhood, according to police. Many of the women are believed to have been prostitutes, police say. Ballistics reports show that seven women and a man were slain by the same weapon between 1985 and 1988. The women had been raped and dumped in the same alley, police say. On Wednesday, the City Council approved the $500,000 reward, proposed by Councilman Bernard Parks, an African American. Parks was the Los Angeles Police Chief in 2001 who ordered his department to investigate the unsolved murder cases. Porter Alexander, whose youngest daughter, Alicia Monique Alexander, was the last known victim in the first round of killings, told The Associated Press that he never saw her again after she left for a quick trip to the store in September 1988. “I said make sure you go to the store and come back. She says, ‘OK,’” Porter Alexander said. “She left, and that was the last time I saw my baby.” Four days later, police found the body of the 18-year-old in a nearby alley with a gunshot wound in the chest, according to AP. It took 13 years before the next related case. “What accounted for that gap, we still don’t know,” police Capt. Denis Cremins said at a news conference Wednesday. “We try not to engage in conjecture.” In March 2002, Princess Berthomieux was found beaten and strangled in an alley in the city of Inglewood. DNA samples linked her to the suspect in the earlier murders, AP reports. The next year marked another killing. Most recently was the 2007 murder of Janecia Peters, a 25-year-old who was shot to death and found in a garbage bag in an alley. Only one description of the so-called “Grim Sleeper” exists. A victim who survived a 1988 attack described her attacker as a Black man in his 30s, driving an orange Pinto, according to AP. “But that’s one person’s account who was traumatized,” Cremins said.

Md. Lawmakers skeptical about new DNA law. Members of the Maryland Legislative Black Caucus are skeptical about a new law that permits authorities to collect DNA samples from suspects charged with anything from a violent crime, such as murder or rape, to a burglary. But caucus members, joined by the American Civil Liberties Union, are concerned that the DNA gatherers are not being properly monitored. The members say that when they negotiated with the governor to enact the law, he guaranteed certain protections to ensure that DNA would not be mishandled, and that samples would be destroyed and records expunged when appropriate. The Baltimore County Crime Lab, the State Police Crime Lab and the Baltimore City crime lab have all had serious problems over the past decade when it comes to handling DNA evidence. Maryland Sen. Delores Goodwin Kelley of Baltimore County is one of the lawmakers who says the law is flawed. But Assistant Attorney General Sharon Benzil contends that “if the law is sort of the blue print, then the regulations are the instruction manual that provides the specifics to the local jurisdiction about how, when, where and what the law requires.”