A man who was wrongly imprisoned for 26 years at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola was recently freed and cleared of his convictions.
The man was accused of a rape he did not commit and now, with the help of Rep. Frankie Howard, he will be compensated for his lost time.
Rickey Johnson was arrested in 1982 for breaking into a woman’s home in the middle of the night and raping her.
He was sentenced to life without parole and has been imprisoned ever since.
In 2007, the Innocence Project joined forces with Johnson’s attorney and they conducted DNA testing on evidence collected the night of the rape.
The DNA profile reportedly did not match Johnson, but instead matched one of the inmates he had befriended in prison who was charged with another rape in the same apartment complex.
“If police and prosecutors had not focused on Ricky Johnson so early in their investigation and if proper eyewitness were identified, the real perpetrator might have been brought to justice sooner,” says Vanessa Potkin, from the Innocence Project.
Although the $150,000 paycheck Johnson will receive won’t give him back all the years he spent in jail, Johnson and his family are happy and relieved that justice has finally be served.
“I am not the man who committed this rape, all I want to do is go home,” said Johnson when he was released.
(Source: Leesville Daily Leader)
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Tags: dna case, wrongful imprisonment