Kennedy Brewer, who spent almost 15 years on Mississippi’s death row for the 1992 mur­der and rape of his girlfriend’s 3‑year-old daugh­ter, has been exon­er­at­ed of the charges, and anoth­er man, Justin Johnson, has been arrest­ed for the same crime. A 2001 inves­ti­ga­tion by the Innocence Project found that the semen on the victim’s body did not match Brewer’s DNA, but did match Johnson’s. Johnson was a sus­pect ear­ly in the case, and his blood was col­lect­ed and pre­served in the Mississippi State Crime Laboratory for more than 10 years.

Last year, Brewer was released on bond, pend­ing a new tri­al after the Innocence Project and his attor­ney pushed for an appeal based upon the DNA test results. Despite the results of the 2001 DNA test­ing, the Mississippi Supreme Court denied Brewer’s request for a new tri­al in 2002. Brewer even­tu­al­ly won a retri­al from a Lowndes County judge. According to the New York Times, District Attorney Ben Creekmore of Oxford, Mississippi, who took over the case when the pre­vi­ous D.A. recused him­self, ​“is prepar­ing to file a motion dis­miss­ing all charges against Mr. Brewer.”

Brewer’s attor­ney, Carrie Jourdan, said that Brewer is try­ing to get back into a nor­mal life. She said, ​“He’s gain­ful­ly employed. He’s work­ing and he’s liv­ing with his elder­ly, dis­abled moth­er, who he assists in tak­ing care of. He has had no prob­lems from a crim­i­nal legal stand­point” since he was released. Mr. Brewer is mild­ly retard­ed.

(“Man charged in child slay­ing for which anoth­er sen­tenced to death,” by Holbrook Mohr, Associated Press, February 7, 2008; see also S. Dewan, ​“New Suspect Is Arrested in Mississippi Killings in Which 2 Men were Convicted,” N.Y. Times, Feb. 8, 2008). See Innocence. Mr. Brewer is the 127th per­son to be exon­er­at­ed from death row since 1973 and the 16th per­son to be freed from death row through DNA test­ing.

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