Man who says he was wrongly convicted will return to NO

Sounds like he should be getting compensation

A man who says he spent 4 1/2 years in a Utah prison for a wrongful conviction is getting financial help from the public so he can return to Louisiana. "I'm going home to the Big Easy," Harry Miller said of New Orleans.

Miller, 53, was released from prison July 6 after prosecutors said they would not seek a second trial for first-degree aggravated robbery.

In 2003, he was convicted of robbing a woman at knifepoint and sent to prison for five years to life. Miller, however, claims he could not have committed the crime in Salt Lake City in 2000 because he was in Donaldsonville, La., recovering from a stroke. His attorneys gathered new evidence to cast doubt on his conviction, and authorities dropped the case. "I wish Mr. Miller well," Kent Morgan, a Salt Lake County prosecutor, recently told The Salt Lake Tribune.

Miller said area attorneys and other members of the public have donated $690 to help him return to the New Orleans area to live with a daughter. The Tribune published a story about his strange case July 22.

Miller has been working for a moving company while trying to earn money to travel home.

He has five grandchildren; three were born while he was behind bars. Miller said he will return in time for the baptism of his newest grandson.

Report here


More background:

Miller, 53, claims he could not have stolen a woman's purse at knifepoint in Salt Lake City on Dec. 8, 2000, because he was in the town of Donaldsonville, La., recovering from a stroke that left him partially paralyzed and unable to speak.

At Miller's 2003 trial, the jury learned from hospital and employment records that Miller was in Louisiana two weeks before the stroke and one week afterward. But a prosecutor argued that Miller had time to come to Utah, commit the crime and return home.

Since then, appellate attorneys obtained additional evidence - including testimony from a home-care nurse who was caring for Miller - that narrowed Miller's window of criminal opportunity to only seven days.

The new evidence persuaded prosecutors to dismiss the case, which had been before the Utah Court of Appeals.

Report here



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