CNN.com - DNA frees man after 22 years in prison
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MEMPHIS, Tennessee (CNN) -- A man who spent half his life in prison for a crime he did not commit said Tuesday he felt no anger over what had happened to him, and blamed his conviction on "human error."
Clark Jerome McMillan, 44, spoke with CNN's Wolf Blitzer on live television less than two hours after he walked out of a Memphis prison.
McMillan spent 22 1/2 years behind bars for a rape conviction which was vacated on May 2 because DNA evidence proved he was not guilty of the crime.
"I'm not angry," McMillan replied when asked about his wrongful conviction and incarceration. "I'm really overjoyed."
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McMillan appeared on television along with Peter Neufeld, a co-founder of the Innocence Project, a group that used DNA technology to clear McMillan. The group is using DNA technology to test hundreds of suspect convictions, most of them made before the technology was widely available.
Neufeld blamed McMillan's plight on "sloppy identification procedures that were utilized by the police, the same kind of procedures that are utilized by the police in Memphis, all over Tennessee, and frankly, all over the United States today."
During the interview McMillan appeared calm and expressed almost no emotion, and never uttered more than one sentence in answers to questions.
McMillan later said the ordeal had left him "hurt" because "it was an unbelievable experience that something like that would happen to me."
When asked who he blamed, McMillan replied, "Human error."
According to the Innocence Project's Web site, McMillan was arrested October 30, 1979, for the rape and robbery with a deadly weapon of a 16-year-old girl. McMillan is African-American. The victim is white.
She and her boyfriend had been forced out of their vehicle in Memphis, Tennessee, by a man wielding a knife. Both were forced into nearby woods, forced to disrobe and then lie on the ground. Both were robbed and the girl was raped. Her jeans, containing sperm deposits, were taken into evidence.
119 years
Both gave similar descriptions of the attacker but failed to mention a limp, according to the Innocence Project Web site. McMillan had been shot two years earlier, wore a leg brace, and walked with a limp. At trial, the limp was added to the victim's description.
The victim and her companion also failed to identify McMillan in a photo array. The girl identified McMillan in a line-up, but her boyfriend chose a different person. Both, however, identified McMillan in a line-up at the trial.
McMillan's sister and girlfriend supported his claim that he was with them at the time of the crime, but he was convicted nonetheless and sentenced to 119 years in prison in May 1980. All his appeals were denied.
McMillan contacted the Innocence Project in 1996, which spent years tracking down files and evidence. Eventually, semen on the girl's jeans was tested and in April McMillan was ruled out as the rapist.
Of the 108 people cleared by the Innocence Project using DNA testing, McMillan has served the longest time in prison.
He said the Innocence Project often can't help people like McMillan because evidence is destroyed. Neufeld said the Innocence Project is pushing legislation that would ensure compensation for people who were wrongly convicted and the preservation of evidence.
McMillan said he hoped that he could receive some type of compensation, but Neufeld said Tennessee has no compensation statute.
At the end of the interview, when asked what he plans to do now, McMillan said, "I'm just gonna live and take each day at a time."
