"Virginia's top court
on Thursday ordered the release of a former U.S. sailor who has spent
33 years in prison, because new DNA evidence showed he did not murder a
Newport News man and rape the man's wife in 1982.The
decision, by the Virginia State Court, came a day after the state's
attorney general, Mark Herring, said he believed Harward was innocent. "It's just
heartbreaking to think that more than half of his life was spent behind
bars when he didn't belong there," Herring said. "The Commonwealth can't
give him back those years, but we can say that we got it wrong, that
we're sorry, and that we're working to make it right."
The DNA found at the scene matched that of Jerry Crotty, who died in an Ohio prison in 2006, Herring said."
Thursday, April 7, 2016
Bulletin: Major Development: Keith Allen Harwood: (Virginia): (Junk bite-mark 'science' case); Exoneration at long last: Reuters reports that earlier today (April 7, 2016) Virginia's highest court cleared the former U.S. sailor of murder and rape after 33 years in prison by Virginia's highest court;
