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Man convicted of 1987 rape expected to be released http://www.thevictoriaadvocate.com/briefs/noon_briefs/v-print/story/2439185p-2823987c.htmlTuesday,

December 21st, 2004 EL PASO, Texas - An inmate imprisoned almost 17 years for a West Texas woman's rape should be freed following new DNA testing, a prosecutor says. El Paso County District Attorney Jaime Esparza and the Innocence Project at the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law planned to request Brandon Lee Moon's release in a hearing Tuesday. "I would like to convey my apologies to Mr. Moon on behalf of the state of Texas and acknowledge that an apology at this time is inadequate, but that my office and the state of Texas, in the interest of truth, recognize the injustice Mr. Moon has suffered," said Esparza, who was not district attorney at the time Moon was convicted in 1988.

The prosecutor said he expected Moon to be freed after the hearing, when he likely will back the motion to free the former University of Texas at El Paso student serving a 75-year sentence. The motion was based on recent DNA tests by the Texas Department of Public Safety, which defense attorneys and Esparza say prove that Moon did not commit the April 1987 aggravated sexual assault. The DPS referred questions to Esparza.

An aide to the prosecutor said he would have more comment on Tuesday. "I'm just numb right now," Moon, 43, told the Houston Chronicle last week at the Hughes Unit, near Gatesville. "I'm just glad it's almost over." Moon plans to relocate to Kearney, Mo., where most of his family lives. Attorney Shelley Bishop, his sister, said his release is an unexpected Christmas gift. "I'm going to be cooking Christmas dinner," said Bishop. "I wasn't going to this year. But I'm hoping he'll be back here in time and I'll have the family over to my house."

The case against Moon was based largely on eyewitness testimony and evidence examined at a DPS crime laboratory in Lubbock. "Now everybody knows what we have known all along," Shirley Moon, the inmate's mother, told the El Paso Times in Tuesday's editions.

Moon was transferred to the El Paso County Jail on Thursday night. The Innocence Project at the New York City law school took Moon's case earlier this fall. "There are serious problems across this entire country in the way crime labs do business, and there's a legacy of injustice," said Barry Scheck, the project's co-founder and co-director. "That has to be corrected in a systematic way."

Scheck will ask for an audit of all cases handled by DPS serologist Glen David Adams while he worked in the DPS' Lubbock office, the newspaper said. Morrison and Scheck said the lab made serious errors in concluding that Moon's blood type was among just 15 percent of the population who could have been the source of the semen at the crime scene. The testing was the only scientific evidence presented to the jury. Tela Mange, a DPS spokeswoman, said she could not comment about the agency's handling of the El Paso rape case.

Although Esparza was praised for his cooperation, Moon's attorneys said blamed DPS and prosecutorial delay for needlessly extending their client's prison time without the district attorney's knowledge. "Brandon filed well over two dozen motions and pleadings, trying to get anyone to look seriously at the DNA results he already had and to get further testing, which would prove his innocence," said Nina Morrison, an Innocence Project staff attorney. "And why nobody acted on it before now, it's hard to understand." Moon appeared in a police lineup five days after the victim told police that she was attacked by a pistol-wielding man in a stocking cap.

The woman identified him as her attacker. But she told police she couldn't say if her attacker had a mustache or identify the color of his eyes. Moon may be eligible for compensation from the state of up to $25,000 for every year of his incarceration, up to a limit of $500,000.

But Sheck said that cannot make up for the time spent behind bars for a crime he didn't commit. "There's no way that he can get back those 16 1/2 years. Everybody else has moved on with their lives," he said.

not to mention the fact that he has been branded ...

Such a horrible injustice. This makes me want to cry when I think about all the innocent people incarcerated with people saying sure you didnt do it. I guess he can never be repaid for all that is lost... my question is about the guy that did 17 years on death row... is he also intitled to this money?