A 53-year-old black man, Sullivan Walter, was exonerated on Thursday after he was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to 36 years for a crime he didn’t commit.
Walter couldn’t hold back tears as a state district judge formally vacated his conviction for a home-invasion rape in New Orleans.
Walter was 17 years old when he was arrested in connection with rape.
The rapist identified in the record as L.S., had entered the home of the victim, in May 1986, held a knife to her throat and threatened to harm her 8-year-old son, who slept through the incident.
The filing also recounts years of errors by Walter’s previous attorneys, including failing to point out conflicting statements by a police officer who worked on the case and missteps during the appeal process regarding the blood and semen evidence.
Emily Maw, an attorney with Williams’ office, outlined the problems in the case in court, noting there were reasons to believe the victim, the only witness, had mistakenly identified Walter.
“There were some red flags that the eyewitness testimony could well have been unreliable,” Maw told Derbigny.
Those “red flags” had been spelled out in a joint filing by the defense and prosecutors ahead of Thursday’s hearing.
“In this case, L.S. was being asked to make a cross-racial identification of someone who at all the times that she could observe him was either masked, in an unlit room at night, and/or threatening her not to look at him. In addition, L.S. was not shown a photo array containing Mr. Walter until over six weeks after the crime,” the motion said.
More significantly, no evidence was presented about Walter’s blood characteristics that did not match the semen collected from the victim after the rape.
Judge Darryl Derbigny expressed anger that blood and semen evidence that could have cleared him never made it to to the jury.
Attorneys said the victim in the rape is now deceased. Maw said in court that authorities had reached out to the victim’s son, who was not present, and that he had expressed regret on behalf of his mother about the wrongful conviction.
Innocence Project New Orleans Legal Director Richard Davis said Walter’s race was a factor in the wrongful conviction.
“The lawyers and law enforcement involved acted as if they believed that they could do what they chose to a Black teenager from a poor family and would never be scrutinized or held to account,” Davis said in a written statement.
“This is not just about individuals and their choices, but the systems that let them happen.”
Walter was cleared on Thursday, after serving a total sentence of 39 years – four for a burglary charge unrelated to the rape case, and 35 years for multiple charges in the rape case.
After appearing in court in New Orleans, Walter was driven to Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel, where he was officially released.
“I’m just ready to live,” Walter said Thursday evening, after he was released from prison, according to NOLA.com. “I just want to live an honest, free life.”
Walter’s lockup marks the fifth longest of any juvenile in the U.S., NOLA.com reported, citing the National Registry of Exonerations.
Joe Lugon, the longest-serving juvenile in the U.S., was released from prison last year after serving nearly seven decades for crimes he committed when he was 15.