He was convicted of rape and acquitted almost half a century later

One now enjoys his freedom african american 72-year-old who was acquitted yesterday Tuesday (5/9) by a court near New York, thanks to new evidence – DNA samples -, for a case rape which was committed in 1975 and resulted in his being sentenced to serve more than 7 years in prison; this is one of the oldest miscarriages of justice cases ever uncovered in the US.

According to data from the Innocence Project, which, along with the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office, had appealed to the New York State Supreme Court, this is the oldest known conviction in the U.S. based on DNA evidence, of all of the more than 3,300 people released since 1989.

He was in prison for over seven years

Leonard Mack, who walked with a cane yesterday and struggled to hide his emotion during the hearing, was in his early twenties when he was arrested on May 22, 1975, and accused of raping a high school student a few hours earlier as they walked with with her friend in the small town of Greenberg, in the same county.

“Even though he pleaded not guilty, and even though there were witnesses who corroborated his alibi,” according to the prosecution, Leonard Mack, who had served in the US Army in the Vietnam War, convicted a year later of rape and gun possession and sentenced to seven and a half to fifteen years in state prison. Considered over seven.

The two victims were forced to “identify” him based on police procedures and methods that were “biased” and “problematic,” according to the prosecution. Police methods have too often victimized blacks and Hispanics, the Innocence Project points out.

Leonard Mack, who lives in the southern United States, as reported by the Athens News Agency, has always insisted on maintaining his innocence. But he had to wait until 2022, when the prosecution reopened the case file and proceeded with analyzes of genetic material that could still be used from the victim’s underwear.

The analyzes exonerated him and allowed the identification of another suspect, imprisoned for a different case. The latter confessed to committing the rape in 1975, but can no longer be convicted of the case, as the crime has been statute-barred.

“Now I can truly say I am free,” a tearful Leonard Mack said, according to excerpts of the hearing in White Plains court that were broadcast by US media.

According to a report released in 2022 by the National Registry of Exonerations, a program of American universities, blacks make up 13% of the US population, but 53% of those exonerated after their convictions due to a miscarriage of justice by the 1989.