DNA reveals FBI error in conviction

A D.C. Superior Court judge concluded Monday that DNA evidence exonerates a man who spent 26 years in prison for the 1982 rape and murder of a Washington woman.

Kevin Martin's case marks the fifth time in as many years that federal prosecutors in Washington acknowledged that errors by an elite FBI forensic unit have led to a wrongful conviction.

U.S. attorney Ronald Machen joined defence calls to vacate Martin's conviction and declare him innocent of the attack on Ursula Brown. Machen cited DNA evidence that contradicts a previous finding by forensic experts linking Martin to a hair collected at the crime scene.

"Thirty years ago, Kevin Martin was unjustly branded a rapist and murderer. . .," Machen said in a statement. "It is never too late to do justice."

Martin, who had long professed innocence in the killing, left the D.C. courthouse with his name cleared. He was paroled in 2009 and lives in San Francisco.

"I am free at last. I am humbled. I never gave up," Martin said, hugging and high-fiving his attorneys. Martin's younger sister, his fiance, his 6-year-old niece and other family members gathered around.

"I just want to live," said Martin, 50,

The hearing came as Machen's office nears the end of a 2-1/2 year review of all local convictions involving FBI hair matches that was launched in 2012 after demands by the D.C. Public Defender Service.

The service has worked to clear four other men convicted by such matches since 2009. And the troubling problems exposed in the FBI lab's methods have led the Bureau and Justice Department to undertake a nationwide review of more than 2,100 convictions in the 1980s and 1990s.

Martin's is the first wrongful conviction uncovered by Washington prosecutors in the local review, and they said it is the only one they have found. PDS praised the effort to exonerate Martin, but criticized the U.S. Attorney's Office review as secretive and the disclosure of results as incomplete and overdue.

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DNA reveals FBI error in conviction