rongfully identified as the perpetrator of a violent rape in Harris County in 1985, seventeen-year-old Kevin Byrd did not match the description of the attacker that the victim originally gave to police. The victim initially described the perpetrator as a thirty-five-year-old white male with an unusual “honey brown” complexion. Byrd was arrested even though he was significantly younger than the description and more importantly, he is black. Byrd voluntarily provided blood, saliva, and hair samples to police, but the science at the time was not advanced enough to exclude him as the perpetrator.
Harris County prosecutors used the victim’s identification as the centerpiece of their case against Byrd. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Not everyone was convinced of Byrd’s guilt, though. The trial judge sent a letter to the chief of police complaining about the investigation. In addition, although evidence was routinely destroyed in Harris County, a deputy district clerk happened to save the trial exhibit containing the biological evidence in Byrd’s case.
Post-conviction DNA testing provided irrefutable proof that Byrd was not the attacker. Byrd was released and eventually granted an official pardon from Governor George W. Bush in October 1997.
Because police and prosecutors ignored contradictions in a mistaken eyewitness’s testimony, Kevin Byrd spent twelve years in prison for a crime he did not commit.
