7 June 2006
Inmate Freed After 18 Years on Basis of DNA Evidence
By WILLIAM YARDLEY
HARTFORD, June 6 — Eighteen years ago, James Calvin Tillman was
arrested on charges of raping and kidnapping a woman after she left a
bar in downtown Hartford. For 18 years, he insisted that he was
innocent. And on Tuesday, he was freed.
He had refused a plea deal, his family said, and was convicted and
sentenced to 45 years in prison. His appeals failed. Distraught, he
underwent psychiatric treatment in prison. He read the Bible and urged
other inmates to read it, too. And, finally, in February 2005, he wrote
to the Connecticut Innocence Project, which helps inmates who claim
that they have been wrongly convicted.
The two public defenders who head the Connecticut Innocence Project
located the victim's dress and pantyhose, which were collected as
evidence in 1988, and had new DNA tests conducted. They found no match
between Mr. Tillman and semen on the clothing. Based on that test, a
judge in State Superior Court vacated his conviction on Tuesday and
ordered a new trial. After the court session, Mr. Tillman's lawyers
speculated that the charges would be dropped. The chief state's
attorney, Christopher L. Morano, said, "There are still some loose ends
that need to be tied up and need to be examined," a reference to an
additional DNA test, and would not say whether he thought the case
would go to trial again.
Mr. Morano said the case was the first in the state in which DNA
evidence had "cast doubt" upon a conviction.
At least for now, Mr. Tillman is out of prison. Less than two hours
after Judge Thomas P. Miano ordered that he be released without bail,
the elevator doors in the lobby of the criminal courthouse on Lafayette
Street opened and there was Mr. Tillman, 44, stepping out slowly,
leaning on a cane as he made his way to an ecstatic woman in white, his
mother, who called out to him and to Jesus.
"Thank the Lord!" said his mother, Catherine Martin, swallowing Mr.
Tillman in her arms in front of his brother, a cousin, a couple of
friends, his lawyers and a few reporters. "Thank you, thank you, thank
you, Father! Jesus! Thank the Lord!"
Moments later, Mr. Tillman, stocky and bald, with a silver cross
hanging from a chain around his neck, walked out of the courthouse and
faced a wall of cameras and microphones. The first words he said were:
"Praise the Lord. Thank you, Jesus."
Faith, he said, got him from 1988 to 2006. Science, he said, got him
out.
"I was innocent all along so I just kept my faith and let science be
science," he said, after thanking the public defenders, Karen A.
Goodrow and Brian S. Carlow.
Mr. Tillman was arrested after a woman identified him from a photo as
the man who abducted her as she was getting into her car not far from
the Arch Street Tavern in downtown Hartford. The woman said Mr. Tillman
drove her a short way, then stopped the car, beat her, raped her and
ran away.
A chemical analysis of semen found on the woman's clothing — done
before DNA testing was available — showed a match to certain
characteristics of Mr. Tillman's semen, and prosecutors used that to
support the victim's account. But the technology is not as
sophisticated as DNA testing, Mr. Carlow said Tuesday, noting that the
semen could have matched that of up to 20 percent of the male
population.
Mr. Tillman protested his innocence. At one point, according to his
mother and his brother, Willie Lee Tillman, 45, he rejected a plea deal
that would have sent him to prison for eight years. In 1989, Mr.
Tillman was convicted and sentenced to 45 years in prison for rape,
kidnapping and other charges.
Mr. Carlow and Ms. Goodrow said it took them several months to track
down the evidence collected in 1988. New DNA testing this spring showed
no link to Mr. Tillman, although one more test has been ordered on a
sample from the dress. Ms. Goodrow said the DNA on the clothing has not
been matched to anyone else.
Judge Miano emphasized that the new DNA evidence did not suggest that a
crime had not been committed by someone, only that eyewitness accounts
can be devastatingly inaccurate.
"The court finds that if this new evidence were proffered in a new
trial that it's likely to produce a different result at such trial,"
the judge said.
The prosecutor in the 1988 case, Edward R. Narus, also represented the
state in court on Tuesday. Mr. Morano, the chief state's attorney,
praised Mr. Narus for cooperating with the defense by agreeing to the
request for a new trial.
Mr. Carlow and Ms. Goodrow did not criticize the way prosecutors
handled the case. "In 1988, it was much more compelling evidence then
than it is today," Mr. Carlow said of the semen testing.
Leaving the courthouse, Mr. Tillman stepped carefully over curbs and
medians on his way to his mother's car, which blasted gospel music the
moment she turned the key. His family said that he hurt his leg in
prison, and that it became infected.
Asked how the green grass and fully leafed trees looked, after his more
than 18 years behind bars, Mr. Tillman said, "Just beautiful."