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Crime Blog Dallas News
July 26, 2014
Dallas County is set to exonerate a 57-year-old man who pleaded guilty in 1990 to raping a 16-year-old girl, the Dallas County District Attorney’s office said in a news release.
Michael Phillips will be the 34th person in Dallas County to be exonerated
Phillips is the first person in the United States to be exonerated without asking that his name be cleared, according to the DA’s office and the National Registry of Exonerations.
Phillips served 12 years in prison and then was jailed for six months for failing to register as a sex offender. He currently lives in a nursing home as he battles sickle cell anemia.
“I never imagined I would live to see my name cleared,” Mr. Phillips said in the news release. “Six of my siblings died from the same disease, so I think God for sustaining me in prison. I always told everyone that I was innocent and now people will finally believe me.”
Testing the DNA came about because the DAs office began testing sexual assault cases from 1990 that met a certain criteria. The new release did not say what that criteria was.
“Mr. Phillips is very lucky that we tested rape kits from the year in which the heinous crime took place,” said District Attorney Craig Watkins, who approved the testing through the conviction integrity unit that he created shortly after taking office in 2007.
DNA testing has also identified the true rapist. Lee Marvin Banks, who lived at the same motel, is the man who raped the girl, according to DNA testing.
“DNA tells the truth, so this was another case of eyewitness misidentification where one individual’s life was wrongfully snatched and a violent criminal was allowed to go free,” Watkins said in the news release. “We apologize to Michael Phillips for a criminal justice system that failed him.”
Phillips will be eligible for compensation from the state in the form of a lump sum payment and annuity payment for his wrongful conviction.
During the attack, the rapist wore a ski mask. The victim, who was white, partially pulled up the mask and believed she recognized her assailant as Phillips, who is black. They lived at the same Dallas motel.
She also later identified Phillips in a photo lineup.
Phillips pleaded guilty to avoid a longer prison sentence, according to the news release.
There will be a hearing Friday to officially clear his name.
