Clyde Charles - First Inmate To Use Federal Civil Rights Laws To Sue For DNA Testing - Dead At 55
The Chicago Tribune is reporting:
Clyde Charles, the first inmate to use a federal civil rights law to sue for DNA testing that not only cleared him of a Louisiana rape conviction but also sent his brother to prison for the same crime, has died. He was 55.
Mr. Charles died Jan. 7 of natural causes at his home, relatives told The Courier newspaper. His health problems included diabetes that required dialysis, they said.
He was the first inmate to sue under the federal Civil Rights Act to get his DNA compared to DNA samples held as evidence, said Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project, a legal center specializing in wrongful conviction cases
After Mr. Charles was sentenced to life in prison for the 1981 rape of a nurse who identified him as her attacker, he pleaded with authorities to conduct DNA testing against evidence collected in the case.
Although investigators had semen samples from the victim, the technology to compare DNA samples didn't exist during Mr. Charles' trial.
Clyde Charles had a tough life after his release from prison, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, nightmares and terrible pain from his diabetes, Scheck said Tuesday.
In early 2003, Mr. Charles was arrested on a charge that he had stabbed one of his other brothers, but was released on $100,000 bail for intensive drug rehabilitation. That case was continued indefinitely in a deal brokered with state prosecutors.
"I wish I could tell you they lived happily ever after. But they didn't," Scheck said.
(Photo Above: Kirk Bloodsworth (left) spent 9 years in prison and Clyde Charles (right) was on Death Row 18 years before Scheck (center) used DNA testing to prove their innocence).
