Post by sclcookie on May 31, 2006 2:05:44 GMT -5
Wrongly accused, now finally exonerated----The Burlington County Prosecutor's Office has dropped rape and murder charges against Larry Peterson, 55. He served 18 years in prison for the crime.
Larry Peterson always believed his innocence would be revealed after he was arrested for rape and murder in 1987.
Even when prosecutors said he should be executed. Even when the judge gave him 40 years behind bars.
He just didn't imagine it would take 1/3 of his life for it to happen.
"The Prosecutor's Office is supposed to be about justice, not about hanging innocent people," Peterson, 55, of Pemberton Township, said yesterday. "Today, finally, something was done that was right."
The charges against Peterson were dropped yesterday after the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office decided the evidence in the case could not bring a conviction at his retrial.
He was jailed a month after the crime and found guilty in 1989. He served 18 years behind bars before receiving a new trial and making bail last year.
"Having made a thorough evaluation of the evidence that now exists 17 years after the original conviction of Mr. Peterson, I am now satisfied that the status of the evidence is such that the state would not be able to sustain its burden of proof at the time of any retrial," Burlington County Prosecutor Robert D. Bernardi said in a statement.
Peterson, a lumber-yard worker, was convicted for the rape and murder of Jacqueline Harrison, 25, a Pemberton Township mother of 2 whose body was found on a dirt road near a township soybean field. A small branch had been shoved down her throat, and she had been sexually molested with a stick.
The case was tried before DNA testing was permitted in New Jersey's criminal court system. With the help of the Innocence Project of New York, Peterson won court approval in December 2003 to have the biological evidence tested.
The results came back in Peterson's favor, failing to place him at the crime and showing that hairs said to be his actually belonged to the victim.
Semen was identified from a consensual sex partner Harrison had been with before she was killed.
A 2nd DNA profile was made from additional semen and scrapings from under Harrison's nails. That profile did not match anyone on file in law-enforcement databases. Find that person, and you've found the real killer, Peterson's attorneys have insisted.
When a judge threw out the charges against Peterson last year, Bernardi said he planned to retry him pending a review of the available evidence. With no DNA link, the new trial would hinge on witnesses who were called at the 1st trial.
But in court papers this week, prosecutors said it would be problematic to use those same three witnesses, who had testified that Peterson confessed to them during a ride to work.
"Unfortunately, the quality of the testimony of these three witnesses has eroded substantially over the past 19 years," prosecutors wrote to the judge.
One's recollection of the events had changed, and another recanted his testimony, claiming he fabricated the confession and key facts based on details of the case he had heard being discussed by police.
The witness who recanted, Robert Elder, said that talking to police back then, he "simply told them what he thought they wanted to hear."
Vanessa Potkin, an attorney with the Innocence Project who represented Peterson, said the case was frightening when considering the state sought to execute Peterson. "He could have been put to death based on snitch testimony and inferior forensic science," she said.
According to Northwestern University's Center on Wrongful Convictions, 51 people put on death row on the word of snitches have been exonerated.
Mike Riley, now a defense attorney, was the Burlington County assistant prosecutor who won the conviction of Peterson. He said yesterday that he believes the verdict "was a proper one."
"I am sure the prosecutor's assessment of the quality of the evidence is correct in 2006, and I am also confident that the quality of evidence in 1987 was sufficient," Riley said.
Jacqueline Harrison's family was shaken by the dismissal of charges.
"I had to raise her two kids because their mother was gone," said Elouise Harrison, the victim's mother, from her home in Maryland. "They said for years it was him, and now all of a sudden there are no suspects or nothing."
Peterson and his mother are still repaying the $20,000 loan she took out to fund his bail in August.
He searched for months to find work, recently landing a job as a carpenter. He has yet to get a driver's license.
"There is a lot I have to do, but I have a job and I have faith in God," he said yesterday. "I am still trying to let it soak in that it has really happened."
New Jersey law allows someone wrongfully convicted to seek $20,000 for every year of imprisonment. Potkin said Peterson, who is the first in New Jersey to have a murder conviction overturned using DNA evidence, may seek additional compensation.
Peterson's attorneys believe a jury would have come to the same conclusion as Bernardi did when deciding to dismiss the charges.
"When facts start to line up the way they did in this case, it is often because someone is innocent," said Lawrence Lustberg, an attorney who would have represented Peterson at the retrial. "Larry Peterson is innocent. Finally, there is no doubt about it."
Peterson's mother, Susie, wept when she heard he was a free man.
"I knew this day would finally come," she said. "I never doubted that my son did not do this."
(source: Philadelphia Inquirer)
Larry Peterson always believed his innocence would be revealed after he was arrested for rape and murder in 1987.
Even when prosecutors said he should be executed. Even when the judge gave him 40 years behind bars.
He just didn't imagine it would take 1/3 of his life for it to happen.
"The Prosecutor's Office is supposed to be about justice, not about hanging innocent people," Peterson, 55, of Pemberton Township, said yesterday. "Today, finally, something was done that was right."
The charges against Peterson were dropped yesterday after the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office decided the evidence in the case could not bring a conviction at his retrial.
He was jailed a month after the crime and found guilty in 1989. He served 18 years behind bars before receiving a new trial and making bail last year.
"Having made a thorough evaluation of the evidence that now exists 17 years after the original conviction of Mr. Peterson, I am now satisfied that the status of the evidence is such that the state would not be able to sustain its burden of proof at the time of any retrial," Burlington County Prosecutor Robert D. Bernardi said in a statement.
Peterson, a lumber-yard worker, was convicted for the rape and murder of Jacqueline Harrison, 25, a Pemberton Township mother of 2 whose body was found on a dirt road near a township soybean field. A small branch had been shoved down her throat, and she had been sexually molested with a stick.
The case was tried before DNA testing was permitted in New Jersey's criminal court system. With the help of the Innocence Project of New York, Peterson won court approval in December 2003 to have the biological evidence tested.
The results came back in Peterson's favor, failing to place him at the crime and showing that hairs said to be his actually belonged to the victim.
Semen was identified from a consensual sex partner Harrison had been with before she was killed.
A 2nd DNA profile was made from additional semen and scrapings from under Harrison's nails. That profile did not match anyone on file in law-enforcement databases. Find that person, and you've found the real killer, Peterson's attorneys have insisted.
When a judge threw out the charges against Peterson last year, Bernardi said he planned to retry him pending a review of the available evidence. With no DNA link, the new trial would hinge on witnesses who were called at the 1st trial.
But in court papers this week, prosecutors said it would be problematic to use those same three witnesses, who had testified that Peterson confessed to them during a ride to work.
"Unfortunately, the quality of the testimony of these three witnesses has eroded substantially over the past 19 years," prosecutors wrote to the judge.
One's recollection of the events had changed, and another recanted his testimony, claiming he fabricated the confession and key facts based on details of the case he had heard being discussed by police.
The witness who recanted, Robert Elder, said that talking to police back then, he "simply told them what he thought they wanted to hear."
Vanessa Potkin, an attorney with the Innocence Project who represented Peterson, said the case was frightening when considering the state sought to execute Peterson. "He could have been put to death based on snitch testimony and inferior forensic science," she said.
According to Northwestern University's Center on Wrongful Convictions, 51 people put on death row on the word of snitches have been exonerated.
Mike Riley, now a defense attorney, was the Burlington County assistant prosecutor who won the conviction of Peterson. He said yesterday that he believes the verdict "was a proper one."
"I am sure the prosecutor's assessment of the quality of the evidence is correct in 2006, and I am also confident that the quality of evidence in 1987 was sufficient," Riley said.
Jacqueline Harrison's family was shaken by the dismissal of charges.
"I had to raise her two kids because their mother was gone," said Elouise Harrison, the victim's mother, from her home in Maryland. "They said for years it was him, and now all of a sudden there are no suspects or nothing."
Peterson and his mother are still repaying the $20,000 loan she took out to fund his bail in August.
He searched for months to find work, recently landing a job as a carpenter. He has yet to get a driver's license.
"There is a lot I have to do, but I have a job and I have faith in God," he said yesterday. "I am still trying to let it soak in that it has really happened."
New Jersey law allows someone wrongfully convicted to seek $20,000 for every year of imprisonment. Potkin said Peterson, who is the first in New Jersey to have a murder conviction overturned using DNA evidence, may seek additional compensation.
Peterson's attorneys believe a jury would have come to the same conclusion as Bernardi did when deciding to dismiss the charges.
"When facts start to line up the way they did in this case, it is often because someone is innocent," said Lawrence Lustberg, an attorney who would have represented Peterson at the retrial. "Larry Peterson is innocent. Finally, there is no doubt about it."
Peterson's mother, Susie, wept when she heard he was a free man.
"I knew this day would finally come," she said. "I never doubted that my son did not do this."
(source: Philadelphia Inquirer)