Clyde Charles: Cleared of rape conviction after DNA test and after 17 years in La. prison

This was a disgraceful case. Around 30 letters requesting DNA testing were ignored by the authorities until the Innocence Project took up the matter



Clyde Charles, the first inmate to use a federal civil rights law to sue for DNA testing that not only cleared him of a Louisiana rape conviction but also sent his brother to prison for the same crime, has died. He was 55. Mr. Charles died Jan. 7 of natural causes at his home, relatives told The Courier newspaper. His health problems included diabetes that required dialysis, they said.

He was the first inmate to sue under the federal Civil Rights Act to get his DNA compared to DNA samples held as evidence, said Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project, a legal center specializing in wrongful conviction cases. After Mr. Charles was sentenced to life in prison for the 1981 rape of a nurse who identified him as her attacker, he pleaded with authorities to conduct DNA testing against evidence collected in the case.

Although investigators had semen samples from the victim, the technology to compare DNA samples didn't exist during Mr. Charles' trial. "Back then you didn't have DNA evidence, so you had to take the word of the victim and work with the evidence you had," then-Detective Jerry Larpenter told The Associated Press in a 2000 interview.

Terrebonne Parish authorities agreed to have Mr. Charles' DNA tested after Scheck, a former O.J. Simpson defense attorney, filed the civil rights lawsuit in 1999. When the DNA samples didn't match, Mr. Charles was soon exonerated and released from prison just before Christmas that year.

The investigation then focused on his brother, Marlo. During Clyde Charles' trial, Marlo Charles testified he had been near the crime scene (the brothers had been drinking at a nearby Houma home) and a court document named him as an alternate suspect. Marlo Charles' DNA was on file in Virginia; authorities confirmed in 2000 that his DNA matched the Louisiana evidence. Marlo Charles was convicted of the nurse's rape in 2002 and sentenced to life in prison.

Clyde Charles had a tough life after his release from prison, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, nightmares and terrible pain from his diabetes, Scheck said Tuesday. In early 2003, Mr. Charles was arrested on a charge that he had stabbed one of his other brothers, but was released on $100,000 bail for intensive drug rehabilitation. That case was continued indefinitely in a deal brokered with state prosecutors. "I wish I could tell you they lived happily ever after. But they didn't," Scheck said.

Original report here. Background on the case here



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