Justice delayed: Texas man first to be cleared by DNA review of old rape kits (+video)

In a Dallas courtroom Friday morning, justice finally came to Michael Phillips, an African-American man who served 12 years in prison for a rape he didnt commit.

The Phillips exoneration is the first in the United States to result from a systematic review of old DNA evidence, rather than from an investigation prompted by a convicted person actively seeking to prove his innocence, reports the National Registry of Exonerations at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

I never imagined I would live to see my name cleared. I always told everyone I was innocent and now people will finally believe me, Mr. Phillips said in a statement.

At the hearing Friday, Dallas County district attorney Craig Watkins formally sought Phillips' exoneration. State District Judge Gracie Lewis said his conviction should be vacated.The exoneration is expected to be formally approved by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in the next month or two, and then Phillips will have the option to apply for compensation. Texas offers $80,000 for each year of wrongful imprisonment. Phillips is 57 and has struggled to find work and places to live since his release from prison in 2002. He is also struggling with illness.

Mr. Phillips pleaded guilty to the rape in 1990 when his defense attorney told him that, if he did not accept a guilty plea, a jury would give him a longer sentence, according to a report by the office of Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins. The 16-year-old white girl who had been raped lived at the same motel as Phillips, and although the rapist was wearing a mask, she said she had pulled it up and seen him, the report notes. She picked Phillips out of a lineup.

She wasnt the first person to make a mistake in identifying her attacker. Out of 34 exonerations that have occurred in Dallas since Mr. Watkins formed a Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) in 2007 to examine past cases, 29 involved erroneous eyewitness identification.

During a review of untested rape kits from cases in 1990 that resulted in conviction, researchers working with the CIU developed a DNA profile for the rapist in this case. No DNA sample had been collected from Phillips because it was not routine at the time, so researchers could not immediately determine his guilt or innocence.

They uploaded the crime-scene DNA profile to the FBIs Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) in 2011. Earlier this year, a match showed up in the system. Lee Marvin Banks, who had been convicted for another crime, was shown to be the source of the DNA in the rape kit.

Prosecutors interviewed Mr. Banks, who denied the rape but admitted to living at the same motel as the victim at the time. They also interviewed the victim. They concluded that Banks was the rapist, though they cannot prosecute because the statute of limitations was five years at the time of the crime.

DNA tells the truth, so this was another case of eyewitness misidentification where one individuals life was wrongfully snatched and a violent criminal was allowed to go free. We apologize to Michael Phillips for a criminal justice system that failed him, Mr. Watkins said in a statement.

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Justice delayed: Texas man first to be cleared by DNA review of old rape kits (+video)