James Tillman
16 years
James Tillman was convicted by a jury of rape and kidnapping on September 19, 1989. With the assistance of the Connecticut Innocence Project, he walked out of prison in 2006 after serving 16 years. The conviction was based almost entirely upon the eyewitness identification of the victim. In 1988, the 26-year-old victim was attacked getting into her car, raped, beaten, and robbed. A forensic analyst testified at trial that serological testing of semen on the victim’s dress could have come from Tillman, as well as about 20 percent of the male population. A rape kit had been collected at the hospital after the crime, but the samples in the kit were not tested at the time of trial. In 2005, the Connecticut Innocence Project, with attorneys Karen Goodrow and Brian Carlow, took on Tillman’s case. More advanced DNA testing was performed on the victim’s pantyhose and on multiple semen stains on the victim’s dress. Most importantly, Tillman was excluded from all of the semen samples and all of the samples matched one another, meaning the semen was from a single source. On June 6, 2006, Tillman’s conviction was vacated after the Superior Court granted a petition for a new trial based on DNA evidence. Tillman was released without bail. Further DNA testing was performed on one more stain on the dress, which also originated from the source on the other stains. On July 11, 2006, the charges against Tillman were dropped, and he was exonerated after spending more than 16 years in prison.
