Bennie Starks was released from prison in 2006, after being locked up for 20 years for a crime he never committed. He is now suing the forensic experts who falsely testified against him in a case of sexual assault.
Although Starks’ charges were dismissed, the 53-year-old man
will never regain his lost years. In 1986, he was found guilty of
assaulting and raping a 69-year-old woman from Waukegan, Ill., and
sentenced to 60 years in prison.
Government witnesses, two dentists and a forensic technician
testified against him. The rape victim also identified him in a
photo line-up, but Starks believes two police officers encouraged
the woman to accuse him.
Dr. Carl Hagstrom and Dr. Russell Schneider, two dentists,
testified that the bite marks on the victim’s body matched the
marks left by Starks’ teeth. Their methodology, however, was
outdated and unreliable, according to information obtained by the
Courthouse News Service.
With government witnesses, forensic ‘experts’, and the victim
herself alleging that Starks was the rapist, there was little he
could do to keep himself out of prison. But in 2006, the Illinois
Appellate Court vacated the man’s conviction and set up a retrial.
DNA evidence cleared him of the 1986 rape, and Starks walked out of
prison a free man.
It wasn’t until January 2013 that all of his charges were
dismissed and his record was clean.
“I’m just overwhelmed with joy,” Starks told ABC after
walking out of the courtroom with a clean slate. The man’s
attorney, Jed Stone, compared the outcome to a “ray of sunlight
that cracked through a cloud”.
But what Starks can’t forget is the false testimony by the
state’s forensic technician, Sharon Thomas-Boyd, as well as the two
dentists who matched his teeth to the bite marks. Thomas-Boyd
falsely claimed that Starks’ semen matched the DNA found on the
victim.
US District Judge Gary Feinerman supported Starks’ theory that
the forensic experts engaged in a conspiracy to falsely accuse
him.
“The complaint amply alleges that the police defendants, the
dentist defendants, and Thomas-Boyd all worked to get Starks
convicted for a crime he did not commit, and it is more plausible
that they each made their contributions to that effort in the
context of an agreement to secure a wrongful conviction than that,
by some wild coincidence, everyone who came into contact with
Starks’s case independently developed a desire to see him convicted
and a willingness to lie in pursuit of that goal,” the judge
said, according to court documents.
It is unlikely that the police officers will be penalized for
lying to the jury, since they hold impunity for doing so. But it is
possible that they could face charges for prompting the rape victim
to falsely identify Starks as the suspect.
Starks claims the conspiracy caused him emotional distress. The
Innocence Project, a group that originally helped the man clear his
name, told ABC that in cases where innocent men are imprisoned,
misidentification is most often the cause.
“Bennie’s case features a wrongful identification and also
faulty forensics,” Lauren Kaeseberg of the Innocence Project
said in January. “Misidentifications make up 75 percent of
wrongful convictions.”
In the state of Illinois, committing conspiracy or perjury
under oath or affirmation is a class 3 felony, which could result
in 2-5 years imprisonment and/or a fine of up to $25,000. The
lawsuit accuses the forensic experts of filing false reports,
giving false statements, conspiring against Starks and pursuing
wrongful prosecutions.
The defendants have filed a motion to dismiss the complaint, but
Judge Feinerman denied all motions except the intentional
infliction of emotion distress.
This article originally appeared on: RT