What to do about "witnesses" like this one?

From the Sun-Sentinel:

A Fort Lauderdale man imprisoned for 14 years on a rape conviction may finally be on the road to clearing his name after test results showed his DNA does not match evidence from the crime, his attorney said.

Larry Bostic, 50, was just 13 days shy of completing his prison sentence...

...She also told the investigator that she never saw her rapist, Sandler said. She picked Bostic out of a photo line-up because she remembered seeing him, a stranger, in the vicinity of the rape a few days earlier, Sandler said...

Larry Bostic is no angel, that much is clear, and the time he did was probably well deserved for other miscreant behavior. However - when a witness picks someone out of a lineup because they happened to remember seeing the dude a few days prior -- "Houston, we got a problem".

What's the answer here? I don't know. Sure there's perjury charges and all that, but does that work? In this case it didn't. Was there an overzealous prosecutor at work here just looking to slam a conviction on a known, not very sympathetic, scumbag?

The whole story is very disturbing.

posted by Purp at 10:02 AM

| Access Comments