From [HERE] In 1976, an all-White jury from Concord, North Carolina, convicted Ronnie Long, a Black man, of raping a White woman and sentenced him to 80 years in prison. He was convicted despite a lack of physical evidence tying him to the rape. In 2005, his attorneys discovered evidence that was withheld during the trial and could have proved his innocence, according to a website dedicated to freeing Long.

Forty-four years later, in August 2020, he walked out of the Albemarle Correctional Institution a free man and hugged what remained of his family after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled his rights were violated at his trial.

Long was 21 years old when the jury convicted him and sentenced him to life in prison. He continually insisted he was innocent. In 2005, attorneys discovered the evidence that was withheld. Apparently his postconviction motions were denied in the state courts, forcing him to seek relief in the federal courts.

Judge Stephanie Thacker wrote that “post-trial disclosures ha[ve] unearthed a troubling and striking pattern of deliberate police suppression of material evidence.” That evidence included semen samples and fingerprints from the crime scene that did not [MORE]