For 24 years Robert Clark was emphatic that he was innocent of rape and kidnap charges brought against him in 1981. After the victim “identified” Clark, however, a jury convicted him and off he went to begin a life in prison. His mother died while he was in jail, and his 3 year old son grew up and had a family of his own (that’s him in the picture above). All the while, Robert just kept on insisting that he didn’t do it.

Yesterday, a federal judge in Atlanta heard evidence brought by Peter Neufeld of The Innocence Project, and after a 15-minute hearing, released Clark forever from prison. Neufeld presented evidence of DNA tests which conclusively established that Clark could not have committed the rape. As it turns out, the DNA samples taken from the victim matched another person who is currently sitting in prison and awaiting release in January. To compound the horror faced by Clark, the real rapist’s DNA matches samples taken from two other rapes of two separate women, both of whom were raped after Clark was jailed. For those who continue to whine about the attention being given to defendant’s rights instead of victim’s rights, take a clue: convicting the innocent Clark left the real rapist free to rape two additional, innocent women. Someday these folks will learn that the price for convicting the innocent isn’t just measured in bleeding hearts for the innocent, but also in the broken lives of additional victims whose personal tragedies compound the grief. By convicting the innocent, you sponsor the commission of new crimes against new victims.

This case marks DNA exoneration #164 for The Innocence Project. Imagine how many more cases like this lie dormant or undiscovered while these champions of justice work their way through each case in their long, long, pipeline, one at a time? Why is this work left to the private sector, for those few lawyers willing to devote their time and energy to this thankless cause? Why isn’t the government that puts these innocent men in prison helping to foot the bill and share the burden? The goverment spends untold millions forcing the recall of faulty automobiles, dangerous drugs, and unsafe products. But this same government doesn’t give as much as a “Sorry” when a mistake of this magnitude is made — why?

I can’t decide if I’m happy or horrified as I think about the image of Clark’s son hugging his dad above. When released, Clark’s first words to his family were “I told you! I told you!”. Think about it: twenty-four years.

Read about the end of Robert Clark’s nightmare here.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 9th, 2005 at 8:14 pm and is filed under Cool Science, News, DNA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.