2023-09-06 09:44:00
A 72-year-old American, who served seven years in prison for a rape he didn’t commit, has been exonerated nearly five decades later thanks to a new DNA test, authorities announced Tuesday.
Leonard Mack was arrested in 1975, in Greenburgh, New York, after the rape of a teenager who was walking from home to school with another young woman. Police had announced the search for a black suspect in a mostly white neighborhood.
After a campaign by the Innocence Project organization, DNA tests that were not available at the time of the events “conclusively ruled out Mr Mack as the perpetrator and identified a convicted sex offender, who has now confessed to the rape,” the county attorney’s office said. from Westchester.
“Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, I’m free at last.” Leonard Mack, exonerated after 47 years. This is the longest wrongful conviction overturned by DNA in U.S. history. pic.twitter.com/0rvYk3YMMd
— Innocence Project (@innocence) September 5, 2023
“It is the longest wrongful conviction in US history known to the Innocence Project to be overturned by a DNA test,” said the district attorney’s office, which underscored “the unwavering strength of Mack, who has fought for nearly 50 years to clear your name”.
According to the National Exoneration Register, 575 convicted persons have been acquitted based on new DNA tests since 1989, of which 35 were awaiting execution.
Despite black people making up just 13.6% of the US population, more than half of the 3,300 people whose sentences were overturned between 1989 and 2022 were black.
“Finally I’m free,” Mack reacted in a brief statement.
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