Judge says Texas man should be exonerated in rape

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DALLAS (AP) — A Dallas man who prosecutors say did not commit a 1990 rape for which he served 12 years in
prison should be exonerated based on recent DNA testing, a judge recommended Friday.
The conviction of 57-year-old Michael Phillips should be vacated, Dallas County Criminal District Court
Judge Gracie Lewis said. The matter now goes to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals; it was not
immediately clear when it would make a ruling.
Dallas County district attorney Craig Watkins sought the exoneration after DNA testing identified another
man as the culprit in the rape of a 16-year-old girl at a motel where both men lived. Watkins has an
ongoing project of reviewing untested rape kits, even without defendants initiating the request.
“This is a great day for Mr. Phillips but a terrible day for our justice system,” Watkins said Friday.

Phillips served 12 years in prison after entering a plea deal that he said his attorney advised him to
take, fearing a jury would not side with a black man accused in the rape of a white girl who picked him
out of a photo line-up. He was released in 2002 but his failure to register as a sex offender later
landed him back in jail for six months. He now lives in a nursing home.
Phillips said during the hearing that he was appreciative.
“I never imagined I would live to see my name cleared,” Phillips, who suffers from sickle cell anemia and
uses a wheelchair, said in a news release Thursday. “I always told everyone I was innocent and now
people will finally believe me.”
Over the last seven years, more than a dozen prosecutors’ offices across the country have created such
staff teams or expert panels to review wrongful-conviction claims. Should the appeals court decide in
Phillips’ favor, it would be the 34th exoneration by Watkins’ Conviction Integrity Unit.
In the Dallas County unit, DNA preserved by the Southwest Institute of Forensic Sciences in sexual
assault kits is tested. There was no DNA from Phillips to compare to the profile from the semen in the
rape kit, Watkins said in a news release Thursday. But when the semen was put into the FBI’s Combined
DNA Index System, another person was identified as the perpetrator.
A district attorney’s office spokeswoman said the statute of limitations has expired on the crime and
that the perpetrator who was identified remains free.
The district attorney’s office said his attorney at the time was Mike Morrow. When reached by The
Associated Press on Thursday night, Morrow said he could not immediately recall the case from 24 years
ago and had no immediate comment.

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