Ex-Death Row Inmate Sues Prosecutors.

A death row inmate who spent 22 years in prison before a DNA test exonerated him in a rape and murder case filed a lawsuit Wednesday accusing detectives and prosecutors of withholding evidence that could have set him free. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for the time Nicholas Yarris spent behind bars before genetic testing cleared him in the 1981 death of a Delaware County woman. Yarris' attorney earlier indicated he was seeking $22 million. It alleges authorities purposely hid evidence from Yarris' defense lawyer before his trial -- including the existence of a pair of gloves that investigators believed had been worn by the killer. Yarris said the gloves were too small for his hands. The lawsuit also accuses Delaware County authorities of cajoling witnesses into changing their stories to fit the government's theory of the crime, and of allowing evidence to deteriorate so it could no longer be tested for DNA. The lawsuit said the effect was ``railroading an innocent man to death row in a gross miscarriage of American justice.'' [more ]