Gary Dotson
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Gary Dotson is an American man who was the first convicted person in the world to be exonerated by DNA evidence. In May 1979, he was found guilty and sentenced to 25 to 50 years' imprisonment for rape and another 25 to 50 years for aggravated kidnapping, the terms to be served concurrently. This conviction was upheld by the appellate court in 1981. In 1985, the accusing witness recanted her testimony, which had been the main evidence against Dotson. He was not exonerated or pardoned at that time, but, due to popular belief that he was a victim of a false rape accusation, Dotson went through a series of paroles and re-incarcerations until DNA evidence proved his innocence in 1988. Dotson was subsequently cleared of his conviction.
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[edit] Alleged crime
Sixteen-year-old Cathleen Crowell, who feared she had become pregnant after having consensual sex with her boyfriend, made a rape allegation as a plausible explanation to tell her foster parents. Crowell's fabrication was based on a scene from a 1974 novel, Sweet Savage Love. On the night of July 9, 1977, a police officer happened upon her standing beside a road not far from the shopping mall in the Chicago suburb of Homewood, where she worked in a Long John Silver's seafood restaurant. Her clothing was dirt-stained and in disarray.
Crowell tearfully told the officer that, as she walked across the mall parking lot after work, a car with three young men in it darted toward her. Two of the men jumped out, grabbed her, and threw her into the backseat. One of them climbed in beside her, and the other joined the driver in the front. The man in the back tore her clothes, raped her, and scratched several letters onto her stomach with a broken beer bottle.
Crowell was taken to the South Suburban Hospital, where a rape examination was performed. It had not occurred to her that police would pursue her case. Police made her make a composite sketch, and Crowell says they pressured her to pick Gary Dotson from a mug book, pointing out how much he resembled the sketch. Dotson was arrested even though he then had a mustache that he could not have grown in the five days since the alleged incident. Crowell identified Dotson as her rapist at trial in July 1979 and he was convicted. The trial also featured false and misleading forensic evidence, as well as alibi testimony from four of Dotson's friends, whom the prosecutor branded as "liars."
[edit] Recantation
In early 1985, Crowell told her New Hampshire pastor that she was riddled with guilt because she had sent an innocent man to prison. On her behalf, the pastor contacted a Wisconsin lawyer who tried to resolve the matter. The lawyer first contacted the Cook County State's Attorneys Office but found the prosecutors unresponsive. The lawyer next contacted the media (leading to the infamous "How about a hug?" moment on the CBS Morning Show). The resulting public sympathy caused a judge to release Dotson on $100,000 bond pending a hearing one week later. At that hearing, the same judge called the recantation less credible than the original testimony and sent Dotson back to prison. Dotson's attorney petitioned the Governor of Illinois, James R. Thompson, for clemency on April 19. The Governor denied clemency but accommodated the popular view that Dotson was innocent by commuting his sentence to time served.
This put Dotson on parole, which meant that he could be returned to prison without a trial. On August 2, 1987, Dotson was arrested on a domestic violence charge against his live-in girlfriend and mother of his child. He was ordered held without bond on August 27, and -- even though the girlfriend refused to cooperate and charges were dropped -- Dotson's parole was revoked. He now faced over 16 years in prison. On Christmas Eve 1987, the Governor gave Dotson one last parole. The Prisoner Review Board revoked the parole on February 17 because Dotson had been late calling his parole officer.
[edit] Exoneration
On August 15, 1988, the governor and prosecutors were notified that DNA testing had positively excluded Dotson and positively included Webb's then-boyfriend, David Bierne, as the source of the semen stain. It was August 14, 1989, before a judge and the prosecutors joined in dismissing the original conviction and dropping any charges. Dotson had been released the previous year when his six-month technical parole violation had been served.
