Innocent Man Freed After Decades On Death Row for Rape/Murder He Didn’t Commit
In January, Nicholas Yarris walked out of the Pennsylvania prison where he had spent 23 years on death row for the rape and murder of a Philadelphia woman.
Yarris was convicted of the killing in 1983 after police testified that he had confessed to the crime. Yarris denied that claim at trial, and the only physical evidence linking him to the crime was that he (and 20 percent of the population, including the victim’s husband) had the same blood type as the killer.
Recent DNA testing of genetic material found under the woman’s fingernails, on her underwear and in gloves worn by the killer showed they all belonged to the same man, but that man was not Yarris.
According to the ACLU, 112 people in 25 states have been released from death row since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
Source:
State frees death row inmate exonerated by DNA. Dan Nephin, Associated Press, January 16, 2004.
The Innocent Man Freed After Decades On Death Row for Rape/Murder He Didn’t Commit by Brian Carnell, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
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