DNA Leads to Overturned Rape Conviction for New York Man
Eyewitness misidentification, racial bias & misleading forensic testimony led to wrongful conviction
Nearly five decades after he was wrongfully convicted of rape, a New York judge has overturned the conviction of Leonard Mack following new DNA testing that eliminated him as the perpetrator and identified a different man who has since confessed to the crime, prosecutors announced. Now age 72, Mack served more than seven years in New York prison after a jury found him guilty of a 1975 rape of a high school girl in Greenburgh, NY, and a related weapons charge, according to the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office.
After opening a review of Mack’s claim to innocence last year, the district attorney’s office conducted DNA testing that “conclusively excluded” Mack as the rapist and also found that the initial investigation and prosecution relied on eyewitness identifications that were “tainted by problematic and suggestive procedures used by the police,” the office stated in the release. Investigators were able to match the new DNA test results to a Westchester man who had been convicted of a separate rape in 1975 and another sex crime in 2004, the district attorney’s office said. When interviewed by an investigator, the man confessed to the 1975 Greenburgh rape, according to the release.
Westchester County District Attorney Mimi Rocah credited the discovery of Mack’s innocence to his unwavering strength fighting to clear his name for almost 50 years. "This exoneration confirms that wrongful convictions are not only harmful to the wrongly convicted but also make us all less safe,” Rocah said in a statement last week.
“Today has been a long time coming. I lost seven and a half years of my life in prison for a crime I did not commit and I have lived with this injustice hanging over my head for almost 50 years,” Mack said in a statement provided by the Innocence Project. “Now the truth has come to light and I can finally breathe. I am finally free,” he said.
To read more about Leonard Mack's fight to clear his name, you can read more about his case at The Innocence Project.
