When an Innocent Black Man is Locked Up 38 yrs for Murdering a White Woman who's the Real Criminal? Maurice Hastings Released Following DNA Test. Sought Testing Decades Ago but White DA Denied Request
/From [HERE] A Black man who spent more than 38 years behind bars for a 1983 murder of a white woman and two attempted murders has been released from a California prison after long-untested DNA evidence pointed to a different person, the Los Angeles county district attorney said.
The conviction of Maurice Hastings, 69, and a life sentence were vacated during a 20 October court hearing at the request of prosecutors and his lawyers from the Los Angeles Innocence Project at California State University.
“I prayed for many years that this day would come,” Hastings said at a news conference on Friday. “I am not pointing fingers. I am not standing up here a bitter man, but I just want to enjoy my life now while I have it.”
The district attorney, George Gascón, said in a statement: “What has happened to Mr Hastings is a terrible injustice. The justice system is not perfect, and when we learn of new evidence which causes us to lose confidence in a conviction, it is our obligation to act swiftly.”
The victim in the case, Roberta Wydermyer, was sexually assaulted and killed by a single gunshot to the head, authorities said. Her body was found in the trunk of her vehicle in the Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood.
Hastings was charged with special-circumstance murder and the district attorney’s office sought the death penalty but the jury deadlocked. A second jury convicted him and he was sentenced in 1988 to life in prison without parole.
Hastings has maintained his innocence since he was arrested.
At the time of the victim’s autopsy, the coroner conducted a sexual assault examination and semen was detected in an oral swab, the district attorney’s statement said.
Hastings sought DNA testing in 2000 but the DA’s office denied the request. Hastings submitted a claim of innocence to the DA’s Conviction Integrity Unit last year and DNA testing last June found that the semen was not his.
The DNA profile was put into a state database this month and matched that of a person convicted of an armed kidnapping in which a female victim was placed in a vehicle’s trunk, as well as the forced oral copulation of a woman.
That suspect, whose name was not released, died in prison in 2020.
The district attorney’s office said it was working with police to further investigate the involvement of the dead person in the case.