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| Ex-inmate Sues Over Wrongful Rape Conviction |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 05/12/2003 |
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A man who spent 11 years behind bars in Massachusetts for rape before being exonerated by DNA evidence filed a lawsuit Thursday against police and prosecutors, claiming they used a highly suggestive identification process and disregarded other evidence that could have cleared him. Neil Miller, 36, was freed three years ago after DNA tests showed he could not have been the man who raped and robbed an Emerson College student in 1989. In his federal lawsuit, Miller claims Boston police and prosecutors used improper techniques to get the victim to identify him and manipulated blood evidence to convict him. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages. ''It's almost incalculable to think about spending 11 years of your life from your 20s into your 30s for a crime you didn't commit, much less for a rape you didn't commit,'' said Howard Friedman, one of Miller's lawyers. The lawsuit names the city of Boston, five city police officers, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office, an assistant district attorney and Suffolk County as defendants. Boston police spokeswoman Mariellen Burns declined comment on the lawsuit. David Procopio, a spokesman for Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley, said prosecutors had not yet been served with the lawsuit and would have no comment. Miller was convicted by a jury in 1990 in the rape and robbery of an undergraduate student at Emerson on August 24, 1989. The woman said she was raped by a man who pushed his way into her apartment and threatened her with a screwdriver. She said he raped her three times, marched her through the apartment to assemble things he wanted to steal and ripped the telephones out of the wall before he left. In the lawsuit, Miller's lawyers say the woman initially did not identify Miller, even though his photo was included in 600 photos she viewed. Police later asked the victim to work with a Boston police artist to prepare a composite sketch of her attacker. One police officer said the sketch resembled Miller, with whom officers had had a recent encounter but did not arrest. Police then produced a 6-year-old photo of Miller taken when he was 16, included it in an array of 10 to 12 photos and showed them to the victim. The victim picked out two photos, one of Miller and one of another man. The detective, knowing the victim had picked Miller's photo first, told her that ''the best thing to do was go with her first impression,'' according to the lawsuit. The woman picked Miller. ''This first photo array was unduly suggestive,'' the lawsuit says. After the identification, Miller was arrested. The Innocence Project, a New York legal clinic co-founded by O.J. Simpson lawyer Barry Scheck, helped prove Miller's innocence. DNA testing on a bed sheet and swabs taken from the victim proved Miller was not the rapist. After he was exonerated, DNA testing matched semen from the sheet to a man who was already in prison on a burglary conviction. That man's DNA also matched semen evidence from two unsolved rapes that were committed after the rape of the Emerson student. Miller charges in his lawsuit that because of the ''deliberate indifference'' of police and prosecutors, the real rapist was able to rape the two other women. |
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