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| Prisoner released after DNA test exonerates him of rape |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 12/08/2003 |
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Calvin Lee Scott said he was on a "natural high" after walking out of prison last Wednesday, freed by DNA evidence after serving 20 years for a rape he didn't commit. "I always had faith," Scott said at a news conference in Norman, Okla. a few hours after he was released. DNA tests on a vaginal swab taken the night of the Pontotoc County rape show Scott was not the victim's attacker. The genetic evidence matches a man now serving time for an Oklahoma County rape. That man's name has not been released, and he won't face prosecution in the Pontotoc County case because the seven-year statute of limitations has expired, said Darrel Wilkins with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. Scott, a construction worker from Shelby, Miss., said he wouldn't let bitterness about the last 20 years ruin the rest of his life. He made it through, he says, "reading the Bible and trusting in the Lord." Scott, 48, was linked to the Aug. 29, 1982, rape through an anonymous tip to Ada police and microscopic analysis of hair taken from the victim's bed. DNA technology was not available during his 1983 trial. The rape victim said a man broke into her Ada home in the early morning hours and assaulted her at knifepoint as her 4-month-old baby lay beside her bed. The rapist did not wear a mask, but covered the victim's face and she could not identify him, said Pontotoc County Assistant District Attorney Nancy Shew, who prosecuted Scott. The mood among Pontotoc County prosecutors was low last Wednesday, Shew said. "You do your job and you think you have righted a wrong, and it turns out 20 years later you haven't," Shew said. "It's very upsetting." Scott is considering a lawsuit, or at least applying for money from the state through a new law signed in May by Gov. Brad Henry. The law allows people who are imprisoned for crimes they did not commit to apply for as much as $175,000 in compensation. He believes he went to prison because he was "a poor black man stranded in Oklahoma." He was helping build a hotel in Ada when he was arrested. Scott was one of 750 inmates who applied to the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System's DNA Forensic Testing Program, which was created by the Legislature in 2000. Four inmates have been freed because of the program. The defense system has about 250 inmates' cases left to investigate, said Julie Gardner, Scott's attorney. The biggest obstacle facing investigators is that crime labs have lost DNA evidence or did not store it properly for testing, she said. A new state law requires crime labs to keep rape kits as long as the defendant is incarcerated, said Jim Bednar, executive director of the indigent defense system. Numerous Oklahoma law enforcement agencies cooperated in Scott's release, Bednar said. The Ada Police Department was able to locate the vaginal swab immediately for DNA testing at the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation lab. Pontotoc County District Attorney Bill Peterson's office received confirmation of the test results last Tuesday afternoon and filed a motion to dismiss the case against Scott. Scott finished serving his sentence for the rape last year, but remained imprisoned on a three-year term for assault and battery of a correctional officer, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections said. |
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