USA: A judge in Los Angeles on Wednesday found a man innocent after more than 38 years in prison for a murder he did not commit in 1983.
Last year, Maurice Hastings was freed from prison after decades-old DNA evidence pointed to another suspect. Hastings' attorneys from the Los Angeles Innocence Project and the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office asked the judge to overturn his conviction in October.
Hastings' attorneys and the prosecution made a second appearance in court to request that Judge William C. Ryan go one step further and clear him of the murder that occurred forty years ago.
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Hastings was declared "factually innocent" by the judge on Wednesday, which means that the evidence conclusively shows that Hastings did not commit the crime. George Gascón, the district attorney, claimed that Hastings "survived a nightmare."
He "spent nearly four decades in prison exhausting every possible means to prove his innocence while being repeatedly denied," Gascón said in a statement. But Mr. Hastings has persisted in his belief that he will one day hear a judge declare his innocence.
According to Gascón, the decision will clear Hastings' name and open the door for him to potentially seek relief in relation to his incorrect conviction.
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According to authorities, Roberta Wydermyer, the victim in this case, was sexually assaulted before being fatally shot in the head. Inglewood, California, which is close to Los Angeles, is where her body was discovered in the boot of her car.
The district attorney's office sought the death penalty after Hastings was accused of special circumstances murder, but the jury was deadlocked. He was found guilty by a second jury, and in 1988, he was given a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Since his arrest, Hastings has insisted he is innocent. The coroner examined the victim for sexual assault at the time of the autopsy, and semen was found in an oral swab, the district attorney's office reported in October.
Hastings requested DNA testing in 2000, but the DA's office rejected the request at the time. DNA testing revealed that Hastings' semen was not his in June of last year after he submitted a claim of innocence to the district attorney's Conviction Integrity Unit in 2021.
The DNA sample was entered into a state database and matched to a person who had been convicted of kidnapping a woman with a gun and forcing her into a car boot. Prosecutors claimed that the suspect, Kenneth Packnett, passed away in prison in 2020.
At the time of his release from prison last October, Hastings, who was 69 years old, told reporters that he had prayed for the day to come.
Hastings declared, "I am not standing up here a bitter man, but I simply want to enjoy my life now while I have it.