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 ]
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