To date, some 362 people in the U.S. have been exonerated by DNA testing, including 20 who served time on death row, The Innocence Project reported.
Add Darnell Phillips to the list of former prisoners who have been released due to DNA evidence and the help of the Innocence Project.
Phillips was sentenced to 100 years in prison for the 1990 rape of a child in Virginia Beach. He was finally paroled three years after new evidence was uncovered in the case by the Innocence Project Clinic at the University of Virginia School of Law, the University of Virginia Today newspaper reported. He served 28 of those years.
When Phillips was finally released from the Greensville Correctional Center, he was met by his mother, sisters, fiancé, and clinic directors Jennifer Givens and Deirdre Enright, along with UVA law students at a Virginia Beach probation and parole office.
Phillips still had to register as a sex offender since he was not yet been officially cleared of the crime. “A petition for a writ of actual innocence is still pending,” University of Virginia Today reported.
The process to set Phillips free was complex. “Prior to the decision by the Virginia Parole Board to release him, made six months ago, the clinic uncovered DNA evidence and received a sworn affidavit from the victim, both of which support Phillips’ long-standing claim of innocence,” University of Virginia Today reported.
The Innocence Project found fault with the way Phillips’ case was handled. In 2015 a team from the clinic discovered physical evidence that led them to do DNA testing. “They discovered that a rape kit and garments from the original investigation had been in storage at a Virginia Beach courthouse evidence room, but had never been tested. After two labs failed to come up with anything conclusive from the time-denigrated samples, a third lab in California found evidence during the summer of 2017 that at least two men had touched the garments, and neither man was Phillips,” University of Virginia Today reported.
The victim statement was found to be untrue. “In her affidavit, the victim said police told her that Phillips had assaulted other children, that his alibi did not check out and that her blood was found on his underwear at his home;” University of Virginia Today reported.
“None of these statements was true,” said Enright, the clinic’s director of investigation.
“None of these statements was true,” said Enright, the clinic’s director of investigation.
Phillips will be on supervised parole unless he receives a pardon or relief in the court, Givens said.
Darnell Phillips is out of prison. He’s still convicted of rape. Find out on @WAVY_News at 5:30 why he says the fight is just beginning. pic.twitter.com/UOUwVjV2Cj
— Jason Marks (@jasonmarkswavy) September 25, 2018
