Posted on 03/04/2016 10:32:03 AM PST by nickcarraway
Before leaving the Lenoir County jail on Wednesday afternoon, Howard Dudley threw his prison uniform on the floor, raised his arms and walked over the clothes.
These were his first steps as a free man in 23 years.
A judge had just freed Dudley, ruling that he had no confidence in the 1992 trial in which the Kinston man was convicted of sexually assaulting his 9-year-old daughter.
Outside the jail, in the crush of family, friends, lawyers and cameras, Dudley smiled broadly and thanked God, his family and his lawyers.
“The only thing I had to fight with was the truth,” he said.
Then Dudley faltered as he remembered his wife and mother, both of whom died while he languished in prison. A sister and sister-in-law struggled to hold Dudley up as his knees buckled.
Dudley, 59, served nearly 24 years for the alleged assault. On Wednesday, he testified that he turned down a plea deal that would have freed him in 1992 because he refused to admit to any wrongdoing when he was innocent.
“I want my name cleared,” Dudley said. “These type of charges are very bad charges. I didn’t commit any of these acts. I need healing, and so does Amy.”
Dudley’s daughter, Amy Moore, had testified at his trial that he had sexually abused her, the only evidence against him. She was 9 at the time. But on Tuesday, Moore told Superior Court Judge W. Douglas Parsons that her previous story was false.
[After almost 24 years in prison, Howard Dudley could go free]
Mental health experts testified that Moore suffers from a host of mental health issues: depression, mental retardation, anxiety disorder and psychotic episodes. Moore is easily led, and her statements to police and social service workers were unreliable, the witnesses testified.
Dudley’s lawyers said she is wracked with guilt from the lies she told that locked up her father for more than two decades.
“Howard Dudley and Amy Moore have been in different prisons for 23 years,” said Spencer Parris, a lawyer for Dudley. “We request freedom for Howard, and by that, freedom for Amy.”
Assistant District Attorney John Newby said the judge should respect the original guilty verdict.
“This case came down to credibility,” Newby said. “In April 1992, 12 jurors were selected. They listened to all the evidence, deliberated and found the defendant guilty. They were in a better position than this court to decide the case.”
An ‘outrageous’ violation
In throwing out Dudley’s conviction, Parsons focused on three flaws in his trial.
▪ Dudley never received copies of social services and court records showing that Amy Moore had given wildly inconsistent and improbable versions of the alleged assault.
“I found this to be an egregious, possibly outrageous … violation,” Parsons said. “This cries out as an injustice to Mr. Dudley.”
▪ Parsons said he was convinced that Moore’s 1992 testimony was false.
▪ And he said Dudley’s trial lawyer failed his client. Nick Harvey had been practicing law full time for just one year. Harvey spent just 27 hours preparing for a trial that carried two potential life sentences. He filed no motions and did not consult any expert witnesses.
“We basically went into trial naked,” Parsons said. “The result is not surprising to me.”
[Read the "Caught in a Lie" series]
A family reunion
Earlier in the day, Dudley shuffled to the witness stand in ankle chains and testified in a soft voice.
He said that he turned down several chances for freedom – a plea deal in 1992, prison programs that allowed early release – for a simple reason.
“I am not a child molester. I have never been one, and I will never be one,” Dudley said.
[Howard Dudley's daughter says she lied about sexual assault]
Dudley’s plight was the subject of a 2005 News & Observer series, “Caught in a Lie.” The stories revealed problems with the case and explored Dudley’s life in prison.
The Wrongful Convictions Clinic at Duke took up Dudley’s case, and in June, Superior Court Judge Paul Jones ordered the hearing that started Tuesday.
Dudley was the final witness at his evidentiary hearing, a minitrial of sorts where his lawyers aimed to prove that he was wrongly convicted.
“I love my daughter Amy,” he said. “I hope that soon I will be able to hug her neck and tell her I love and forgive her.”
Moore, however, was not in court Wednesday, so their reunion would wait. Dudley’s first stop: Bojangles’, for fried chicken covered with Texas Pete.
“Wow,” Dudley said. He stared at the menu board, almost paralyzed by the dozens of choices.
The woman running the counter asked: Would you like a Supreme?
“Yeah, that will work,” Dudley said. “Whatever it is.”
After Dudley sat down to eat, three dozen family members launched a a pop-up party.
“I just want to go home and sleep in a bed,” Dudley said. “And not look at a fence.”
Joseph Neff: 919-829-4516, @josephcneff
THE STORY SO FAR
Although Amy Moore recanted her testimony shortly after Howard Dudley was convicted in 1992, the wheels of justice sometimes grind slowly. The News & Observer’s four-part series, “Caught in a Lie,” was published in 2005, casting doubt on Dudley’s conviction. The Wrongful Convictions Clinic at Duke picked up the case and, nearly a decade later, this week’s hearing began.
Joseph Neff, who joined The N&O in 1992, wrote the series on Dudley’s case. Neff, 55, has written extensively about criminal justice. He exposed the misconduct of former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong in the Duke lacrosse case and has investigated several cases of wrongful convictions.
“Assistant District Attorney John Newby said the judge should respect the original guilty verdict.”
Sounds like this guy should spend 23 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.
Thanks for posting. A terrible injustice all around.
Horrible case.
The prosecution withheld exculpatory evidence. Where have we seen this before?
If you don’t have money for a lawyer you don’t have any rights.
Regardless of innocence it’s the charge that is important and will stay with you for life. The question always asked: Have you ever been ‘charged’ with a crime. Doesn’t matter if you were exonerated the charge will always stick.
How about we put your miserable a$$ in prison for 23 years on a trumped up child molestation charge? How about that, you disgusting sleazoid?
Many DAs have hopes of attaining political office. Nothing pads the old resume or makes better vote-for-me commercials than a track record of putting away bad guys.
If a few innocent people have to serve hard time, that's a price they are willing to pay.
But her statements NOW are rock solid. The cops would have "led" her to make incriminating statements, but the defense would never "lead" her to recant her story.
If the guy is innocent, a great injustice has been partially righted. But if he's just the beneficiary of two decades worth of second-guesses, then the system just unleashed a predator.
I used to manage properties for local government, one of the properties was a courthouse with 43 courtrooms. Prosecutors do this kind of stuff more often than not. If the only witness is a nine year old retarded child then there was never a case. The prosecution can get a kid to say anything especially a retarded kid. The problem is the kid said a lot of things that proved the guy Innocent but that information was withheld from the defendant. The withholding of exculpatory evidence is breaking the law. The DA should spend time in prison.
It is not the prosecutor’s job to build the defense’s case. In Discovery, the parties are supposed to disclose all relevant information concerning the case. The operative word there being “relevant.”. If a DA thought the evidence was sufficiently exculpatory to jeopardize his case, then he probably shouldn’t have prosecuted it to begin with. To withhold it violates the Canon, and can result in mistrial, loss on appeal, and censure.
The defense should have destroyed this girl’s testimony, which shouldn’t have been hard to do in view of her history.
See my tagline.
Murderers get less time.
The defense should have destroyed this girl’s testimony, which shouldn’t have been hard to do in view of her history.
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I'm sorry to have to strongly disagree with you but, in this country the prosecution has to share ALL evidence found during an investigation, it is the law. The prosecutor broke the law and because of it an innocent man spent a quarter century in prison.
The stated purpose of prosecutors is to find the truth, not put people in jail. If the truth finds someone guilty of crime then the prosecutors job is to present the evidence to a judge or jury and then punish the criminal. If the evidence points to innocence of the accused the prosecutor has an obligation under law to work to free the accused.
Unfortunately our justice system has evolved into whoever puts the most people in prison has the most respect from his peers.
Our system of prosecution is better than most of the world but has many problems and flaws.
In the adversarial model of American jurisprudence, the prosecutor's job is to make the most rigorous case he can to convict, just as it is the defense's job to defend with all the rigor at his disposal. The presumption is that, by creating such an atmosphere, the truth will eventually out.
I agree that it is not the best model in the world. It is only better than anything else so far practiced.
Yes, the prosecution is obligated to reveal all RELEVANT evidence. But if he deems the evidence irrelevant or of dubious credibility, he may opt to not reveal it at all. That is his prerogative, and a sharp defense attorney will pursue ALL the evidence, regardless of whether the prosecution considers it relevant or not.
What this prosecutor did was a breach of the Canon, but does not rise to the level of a crime. In my opinion ...
Yes, the prosecution is obligated to reveal all RELEVANT evidence.
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No, The prosecutor is obliged to reveal all evidence. The prosecutor cannot later say “well, I didn’t think that was relevant so didn’t give it to you”, no, he has to give all there is.
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