A New Orleans man was ordered immediately released from prison after 36 years of incarceration for a home invasion-rape he did not commit.
The IPNO said in its statement Thursday that testing on seminal fluids recovered from the victim proved that Walter did not commit the crime, “but the jury that convicted Mr. Walter did not learn of this and it has never before been fully presented to a court.”
“To say this was unconscionable is an understatement,” Derbigny told Walter Thursday, according to the AP.
After Walter appeared in a New Orleans court, he was taken back to Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel where he was officially released, free for the first time since he was a teenager, according to the AP andThe Times Picayune.
Walter’s incarceration stands as the longest wrongful incarceration of a minor in Louisiana state history and the fifth longest in U.S. history, according to IPNO’s release.
The Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment Friday.
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While the motion states the victim — identified only as L.S. — believed she could identify the perpetrator at the time, “all the times that she could observe him was either masked, in an unlit room at night, and/or threatening her not to look at him,” according to the motion.
When Walter was arrested for an unrelated burglary nearly six weeks after the rape, he was subsequently arrested for the rape based on the victim’s identification and the fact that Walter was wearing a blue baseball cap similar to the perpetrator’s, according to the motion.
“What is unusual about this case is how little effort was made to hide the injustice being done to Mr. Walter,” IPNO legal director Richard Davis said in a statement. “The lawyers and law enforcement involved acted as if they believed that they could do what they chose to a Black teenager from a poor family and would never be scrutinized or held to account. This is not just about individuals and their choices, but the systems that let them happen.”
“I’m just ready to live,” Walter said after his release Thursday, according toThe Times Picayune. “I just want to live an honest, free life.”
The victim in the rape has since died, according to the motion. The victim’s son “expressed regret on behalf of his mother about the wrongful conviction,” when authorities reached out to him, according to the AP.
IPNO began investigating Walter’s case in October 2021, according to the motion.
source: people.com
