In a case that sharply illus­trates the fal­li­bil­i­ty of eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny, Miami-Dade pros­e­cu­tors plan to ask a state judge to vacate the con­vic­tions of Luis Diaz based on DNA evi­dence that was not avail­able dur­ing his 1980 tri­al. Though he was short­er and lighter than the man that most wit­ness­es described to police, Diaz was charged with rape 25 years ago after eight women iden­ti­fied him as their attack­er. Following his tri­al, the judge said, ​“I’ve nev­er seen a case where I was more con­vinced of a man’s guilt.” Two decades lat­er, two of the vic­tims came for­ward say­ing that Diaz had not been their attack­er, and one of the women claimed she chose his pic­ture from a pho­to spread only because police had pres­sured her to select one of nine pho­tographs.

Only two DNA sam­ples remained from the orig­i­nal tri­al. Both were from the same man and not from Diaz. Barry Scheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project that ini­ti­at­ed the test­ing in Diaz’s case, stat­ed that about 75% of the exon­er­a­tions since the advent of foren­sic DNA test­ing in 1989 have hinged on mis­tak­en eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion.

Diaz said that he has spent much of his time in prison read­ing the Bible and that he hoped to get to know his grand­chil­dren when he is released. 

(New York Times, August 3, 2005). See Innocence.

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