Inaccurate Hair Microscopy, New DNA Testing Leads to Exoneration of Carlton Lewis After 31 Years

Carlton Lewis was released from prison after more than three decades of wrongful conviction in New York. Credit: Malik Rainey/Innocence Project

Carlton Lewis was exonerated earlier this month in Syracuse, New York, more than three decades after he was wrongly convicted and incarcerated for second-degree murder in 1992. New DNA testing results exclude Lewis from the scene of the crime and confirm his continued assertion of innocence. No crime scene evidence links Lewis to the murder.

Three common contributing factors to wrongful conviction were present in the prosecution’s case against Lewis in 1992: the testimony of an incentivized witness; a false confession, and hair microscopy—a forensic technique that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has acknowledged leads to inaccurate results and wrongful convictions.

“I always believed in myself, I’ve always fought for the truth.” Lewis said. “I’ve known all along I’m innocent, but it feels good to finally have the court acknowledge it, to finally have no more lies hanging over my head. I can finally sleep … I just wish all my family members who saw this happen to me were still alive to see this day. That’s what hurts the most, that they’re not able to be here for this. But the truth is finally out, and I thank everyone who believed in me and fought for me.”

“This has been a long, hard fight for Lewis,” said Adnan Sultan, a senior staff attorney at Innocence Project who represents Lewis. “The criminal legal system stole over 30 years from Lewis. Today he is a 57-year-old man who has shown tremendous perseverance and resilience. This is a bittersweet day. We are thrilled that Lewis is finally being exonerated, but he should have never been convicted of this crime in the first place.”

An Incentivized Witness and a False Confession On the morning of February 7, 1990, Cheryl Coleman was found dead in an empty apartment in Syracuse, New York. She had been sexually assaulted and beaten with a two-by-four piece of wood that was found near her body.

Upon arriving on the scene, a police officer observed blood on the walls in the hallway, on the rug, and on the two-by-four wooden board. On the same day that Coleman’s body was discovered, the Syracuse Police Department developed a list of suspects, which included men who frequented nearby bars, including William McKee, Gregory Brown, and Lewis.

Police first questioned Lewis at his home on February 10, 1990. Lewis told police in a sworn statement that he was at home with his wife on the night of the murder. His wife corroborated his account.

William McKee, who was 16 years old, was interviewed twice by investigators over the course of two days – and gave differing accounts to police each time. In his first sworn affidavit, McKee described being at a bar on the night of the murder when he saw an unfamiliar woman

approach a man he identified as Lewis across the street. McKee stated that he then observed the two go into a house on the corner and come out 15 to 20 minutes later. McKee told police that Lewis then began to pull on him to get him to come into the house. At this point, McKee said he asked “What did you do, Carl?” and said that Lewis replied “It’s my business.”

After McKee’s first interview with police, Lewis was questioned again 10 days after his first interview. The circumstances of Lewis’ second interrogation present a number of factors known to cause false confessions. Lewis was taken from his home at 12:15 a.m. and questioned, without the presence of a lawyer, for hours into the morning until he signed a statement he neither read nor wrote on his own.

Under these circumstances. Lewis’ second statement was vastly different from his earlier, corroborated account in which he told police that he was at home with his wife on the night of the murder. Instead, Lewis signed a statement he couldn’t read that said he was present while Brown had sex with Coleman and then stood by as Brown killed her.

Research shows that false confessions can take place due to law enforcement’s use of intimidation, coercive tactics, isolation during interrogations, deceptive methods that include lying about evidence, and more. An innocent person may falsely confess because of increased stress, mental exhaustion, or promises of lenient sentences. False confessions have contributed to 27% of the Innocence Project’s 245 victories to date.

The second time police interviewed McKee, his story changed. McKee said he lied in his first statement and wanted to clear up inconsistencies. This time, McKee said that he saw Brown and Lewis have sex with Coleman and that Brown, and later Lewis, struck Coleman with the two-by-four piece of wood. In exchange for this testimony, McKee received a reduced sentence and charge for his role in the murder. Instead of a sentence of 25 years to life, McKee was made eligible for parole after six years.

Following McKee’s second statement to police, Lewis was arrested on February 20, 1990, for murder in the second degree.

A Problematic Case The State’s case against Lewis relied on McKee’s contradictory testimony, Lewis’s false confession, and problematic evidence in the form of hair microscopy. The State claimed that hairs found at the scene of the crime matched Lewis. However, hair matching is known to lead to inaccurate results and wrongful convictions, a fact the FBI has since acknowledged. Nevertheless, Lewis and Brown were both convicted of murder at the first trial.

Lewis’ conviction was overturned on appeal, and he was retried separately from Brown. The State relied on the same basic theory in the second trial. The defense did not call any of its own witnesses, relying instead on cross-examination. It tried to highlight the lack of credibility of the State’s incentivized witness, McKee, and point out the inherent flaws in the use of hair microscopy. At the second trial, Lewis was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for murder in the second degree.

DNA Testing Excludes Lewis from the Crime Scene During the post-conviction investigation, the Innocence Project ordered DNA testing of the evidence, including a rape kit. No crime scene evidence linked Lewis to the murder and sexual assault. DNA results from the semen samples on the vaginal swab and the stain on Coleman’s pants excluded Lewis as the source in both samples. Results from other stains on Coleman’s pants, which contained non-sperm DNA fraction mixtures, also excluded Lewis as a source.

Additional DNA testing performed on the two-by-four board further excluded Lewis as a potential source of any biological material left behind, meaning Lewis never handled the murder weapon. These results further contradict McKee’s testimony that Lewis struck Coleman with the board after she was hit by Brown. The DNA results also prove that Lewis falsely confessed.

Now that he is finally exonerated, Lewis said he is looking forward to spending time with his family and getting his life back now that this wrongful conviction is behind him.

The Innocence Project has never defended anyone who was Innocent.

Their full time job is to create reasonable doubt, usually decades after the fact.

The current prosecutor - often a new Soros prosecutor - eagerly agrees.

It is possible some of the allegedly "falsely" accused would have been found Not Guilty at their original trials - if they had had elite legal representation.

But, none of them could have been declared innocent by anyone.

The original prosecutors are never charged with false prosecution because they would never be convicted.

The original prosecutors and detectives never make any public comments because everything they say can and would be used against them in civil lawsuits.

I am completely comfortable with Not Guilty verdicts. If you are not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, our legal system says you are a free man, and you can walk away.

But, none of these guys are Innocent.

FYI, below is a lengthy excerpt from the “exonerated” defendant’s appeal back in 1994, where the appellate court reversed the murder conviction on the grounds that the trial court should have severed, i.e., held separate trials, for the defendant and his co-defendant Gregory Brown. The defendant was convicted at a second trial. The appellate court lays out a factual scenario quite at odds with the Innocence Project’s claim that the defendant was exonerated:
1)The defendant admitted to police being in the victim’s apartment at the time of the murder.
2) The police recovered physical evidence in the apartment that belonged to the defendant.
3) The defendant implicated a co-defendant named Brown as the murderer and provided an alibi for the third co-defendant named McKee, claiming to the police that after Brown committed the murder, he told McKee to go inside the apartment where the victim was already dead-—But......McKee pleaded guilty to the murder and implicated the defendant in the beating death!!
4) In another appeal raised by the defendant, which was denied, the appellate court noted that a separate witness testified that he overheard McKee and the defendant plotting to sell the victim fake drugs, which contradicts the defendant’s claim to police that it was co-defendant Brown’s independent plan to himself sell the victim fake drugs for sex. This same independent witness saw the three co-defendants together outside of the residence/crime scene.
5) In sum, the Defendant admitted to the police that he was inside the victim’s residence. He admitted that he personally witnessed the murder inside the residence. The police found belongings of the defendant in the apartment. The defendant (and his wife) falsely told the cops that the defendant was at home at the time of the murder. The defendant falsely told the cops that he had nothing to do with a drug rip-off plan, whereas an independent witness testified that he heard the defendant preparing the plan and saw all three defendants with the victim just before the murder.
The DNA evidence “exonerates” the defendant? No. DNA was not used in trials until the mid-90s, so the police in 1992 did not process the crime scene with DNA in mind. Three men had sex with the victim and police recovered some pubic hair and semen that did not match the defendant. That does not exonerate him. It undoubtedly matched one of the co-defendants. Again, the police in 1992 did not collect evidence like they do today to preserve DNA or hunt for DNA. To believe that this guy is innocent you have to believe: 1) he did not make the inculpatory statement that HE SIGNED to the police; 2) that co-defendant McKee pleaded guilty to a murder he did NOT commit and lied and implicated the defendant in that same murder; 3) that an independent witness lied about the defendant plotting to rip-off the victim; 4) that a guy would watch a murder and do nothing to stop it; 5) that belongings of the defendant somehow got into the victim’s residence by osmosis.....

Below is the appellate court’s opinion:

Defendant and codefendants Willie McKee and Gregory Brown were charged with murder in the second degree ( Penal Law § 125.25 [1]) and criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree ( Penal Law § 265.01 [2]) in connection with the beating death of Cheryl Coleman. Prior to trial, defendant moved to sever the charges against him from those against McKee and Brown. That motion was denied. Thereafter, McKee entered a plea of guilty to manslaughter in the first degree and agreed to testify for the prosecution at the trial of defendant and Brown.

McKee testified that he, Brown and defendant all participated in the beating death of Coleman in an apartment at the corner of Lafayette and Salina Streets in the City of Syracuse. According to McKee, Coleman had agreed to have sexual relations with the three men in exchange for two bags of cocaine. After having sex [***2] with the men and being given fake cocaine by Brown, Coleman became enraged. When she began screaming and cursing at Brown, he picked up a two-by-four lying in the hallway and repeatedly hit Coleman in the head and face. McKee testified that he and defendant thereafter took turns hitting Coleman with the board. Although physical evidence of defendant’s presence was collected from the apartment, none conclusively established either that defendant had sex with Coleman or that he participated in her beating.

[**82] Upon his apprehension by police, defendant gave a statement wherein he admitted that he was in the apartment at [*1094] the time of Coleman’s death. Defendant indicated, however, that it was Brown who was first in the apartment with Coleman, that only Brown had sex with Coleman, that it was Brown who gave Coleman the fake cocaine, that only Brown bludgeoned Coleman, and that McKee came to the apartment only after defendant went to get him.

Although defendant’s statement was found admissible at a pretrial Huntley hearing, at trial, the court, in order to protect the Bruton rights (see, Bruton v United States, 391 US 123) of Brown, redacted all references [***3] to Brown in defendant’s statement. That redaction transformed defendant’s statement from one which was substantially exculpatory to one which was highly inculpatory. The redacted statement that was admitted at trial indicates that only defendant was present with Coleman prior to her bludgeoning and that, after defendant had provided Coleman with fake drugs, he took McKee to the premises and told McKee that Coleman was probably dead inside the apartment. The prejudice suffered by defendant as a result of the redaction was exacerbated by testimony from an investigator that defendant admitted being in the apartment at the time Coleman was killed.

People v. Lewis, 182 A.D.2d 1093, 1093-94, 583 N.Y.S.2d 81, 81-82 (App. Div. 4th Dept. 1992)

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