Exonerated victim, or continued threat?
Cobbler convicted in rape and murder of girl walks free
Wednesday, January 28, 2004 Posted: 2:38 PM EST (1938 GMT)
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (AP) -- A man who spent four decades in prison for the rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl was freed Wednesday following a long court battle to force the state to honor a governor's clemency order.
Louis Mickens-Thomas, 75, has long maintained his innocence in the death of Edith Connor, whose battered body was found in an alley behind his Philadelphia shoe shop in 1964. He said fraud by a police crime lab led to his conviction.
He told reporters near Graterford state prison moments after his release that he was looking forward to seeing his family, including his daughter Mary, born two months after he went to prison.
"I'm not a rapist. I'm not interested in little girls," he said.
Mickens-Thomas will live indefinitely at a halfway house in Allentown.
Supporters persuaded the late Gov. Robert Casey to commute his life sentence in 1995 but state parole officials and subsequent administrations had refused to free him.
The family of the dead child had lobbied furiously to keep Mickens-Thomas in prison, calling him an unrepentant killer who remains a threat to society.
A federal appeals court ruled January 14 that the parole board showed "vindictiveness" in refusing to consider parole, and ordered his release.
His impending freedom had infuriated the family of the dead child.
"I think of this. I look at this. And I can't sleep at night over it," said Prince Connor, a retired police officer who was 14 when his sister was killed in 1964. "There is no closure, no justice. This has been a fiasco from day one. My family felt that this guy should have gotten the death penalty."
Two trials, DNA discarded
Prince Connor, left, discusses the 1964 death of his sister.
At his first trial, a crime lab technician testified that paint chips from the shoe shop and bristles from a shoe brush had been found on the girl's clothing. Mickens-Thomas was convicted, but
later granted a new trial after the technician was unmasked as a fraud who had never graduated high school.
He was convicted again after the lab's director testified that he, not the discredited technician, analyzed the particles.
Mickens-Thomas spent the next three decades as a model prisoner and earned a bachelor's degree from Villanova University through correspondence classes.
DNA analysis was not available in the 1960s, and it is too late for a test now. All physical evidence in the case was discarded in the early 1990s.
Centurion Ministries, a New Jersey-based group that fights for the release of prisoners it believes are innocent, ultimately persuaded Casey, a Democrat, to commute Mickens Thomas' sentence.
That decision made him eligible for parole in 1996, but two Republican successors, Gov. Tom Ridge and Gov. Mark Schweiker, refused to release him. As recently as last spring, parole officials argued that Mickens-Thomas remained an "unrepentant dangerous sexual offender."
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled January 14 that the board had acted in "bad faith" in refusing to consider parole, and ordered him released.
Connor's family notes that the murder conviction was not Mickens-Thomas' first brush with the law. Before his incarceration, police investigated allegations that he attempted to sexually assault a 14-year-old baby sitter. A second woman told police Mickens-Thomas once choked her with a scarf until she fainted. He was not prosecuted in either case.
During their evaluation of Mickens-Thomas last year, parole board members said he continued to display "anger and resentment toward women."
Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/01/28/commuted.sentence.ap/index.html
Cobbler convicted in rape and murder of girl walks free
Wednesday, January 28, 2004 Posted: 2:38 PM EST (1938 GMT)
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (AP) -- A man who spent four decades in prison for the rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl was freed Wednesday following a long court battle to force the state to honor a governor's clemency order.
Louis Mickens-Thomas, 75, has long maintained his innocence in the death of Edith Connor, whose battered body was found in an alley behind his Philadelphia shoe shop in 1964. He said fraud by a police crime lab led to his conviction.
He told reporters near Graterford state prison moments after his release that he was looking forward to seeing his family, including his daughter Mary, born two months after he went to prison.
"I'm not a rapist. I'm not interested in little girls," he said.
Mickens-Thomas will live indefinitely at a halfway house in Allentown.
Supporters persuaded the late Gov. Robert Casey to commute his life sentence in 1995 but state parole officials and subsequent administrations had refused to free him.
The family of the dead child had lobbied furiously to keep Mickens-Thomas in prison, calling him an unrepentant killer who remains a threat to society.
A federal appeals court ruled January 14 that the parole board showed "vindictiveness" in refusing to consider parole, and ordered his release.
His impending freedom had infuriated the family of the dead child.
"I think of this. I look at this. And I can't sleep at night over it," said Prince Connor, a retired police officer who was 14 when his sister was killed in 1964. "There is no closure, no justice. This has been a fiasco from day one. My family felt that this guy should have gotten the death penalty."
Two trials, DNA discarded
Prince Connor, left, discusses the 1964 death of his sister.
At his first trial, a crime lab technician testified that paint chips from the shoe shop and bristles from a shoe brush had been found on the girl's clothing. Mickens-Thomas was convicted, but
later granted a new trial after the technician was unmasked as a fraud who had never graduated high school.
He was convicted again after the lab's director testified that he, not the discredited technician, analyzed the particles.
Mickens-Thomas spent the next three decades as a model prisoner and earned a bachelor's degree from Villanova University through correspondence classes.
DNA analysis was not available in the 1960s, and it is too late for a test now. All physical evidence in the case was discarded in the early 1990s.
Centurion Ministries, a New Jersey-based group that fights for the release of prisoners it believes are innocent, ultimately persuaded Casey, a Democrat, to commute Mickens Thomas' sentence.
That decision made him eligible for parole in 1996, but two Republican successors, Gov. Tom Ridge and Gov. Mark Schweiker, refused to release him. As recently as last spring, parole officials argued that Mickens-Thomas remained an "unrepentant dangerous sexual offender."
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled January 14 that the board had acted in "bad faith" in refusing to consider parole, and ordered him released.
Connor's family notes that the murder conviction was not Mickens-Thomas' first brush with the law. Before his incarceration, police investigated allegations that he attempted to sexually assault a 14-year-old baby sitter. A second woman told police Mickens-Thomas once choked her with a scarf until she fainted. He was not prosecuted in either case.
During their evaluation of Mickens-Thomas last year, parole board members said he continued to display "anger and resentment toward women."
Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/01/28/commuted.sentence.ap/index.html
