DNA clears Houston man 27 years after conviction

Michael Green

A Houston man is expected to be freed this week after serving more than 27 years in prison — the longest time behind bars of any Texan who has been exonerated - for a rape prosecutors now say he did not commit.

Michael Anthony Green, 45, is expected to be in court today, when his attorney, Bob Wicoff, will ask that he be released on bail while the case moves forward.

If freed, Green would be the eighth local man let out of prison in recent years, and the second in a week, after serving time for a crime he did not commit.

"He is innocent," Wicoff said. "We've got the bad guys, too. We've pegged the bad guys."

Green was sentenced to 75 years in prison for the 1983 rape of a Houston woman based on faulty eyewitness identification, Wicoff said. Read more.

Source: Houston Chronicle, July 28, 2010

Innocent prisoner's angry outburst delays release

A Houston man expected to be freed today after being imprisoned 27 years for a rape he did not commit will have to wait one more day after reacting "emotionally" to the reality of his release this morning.

Bob Wicoff, an attorney for Michael Anthony Green, said his client was angry and would need another day to compose himself before having a bond set while the Texas Court of Criminal Appeal rules on his actual innocence.

"He was upset," Wicoff said. "Hopefully he'll be fine tomorrow."

Green was expected to be granted a personal recognizance bond by visiting state District Judge Mike Wilkinson this morning. He was not brought into the courtroom, but loud shouting could be heard from behind the door to the court's holdover cell.

Wicoff said the shouting was Green.

"This has been a gross perversion of justice and he's a smart guy and he knows it," Wicoff said. "He's angry."

The release was the next step in proceedings to declare Green actually innocent of a 1983 sexual assault. Read more.

Source: Houston Chronicle, July 29, 2010

Adding insult …

After years of wrongful imprisonment, a prisoner faced one last injustice

For 27 years, imprisoned Houstonian Michael Anthony Green, wrongly convicted in 1983 of aggravated sexual assault, protested his innocence and fought in vain to clear his name. Last year, his case was taken up by the Post Conviction Review Section, a group of lawyers and investigators newly formed by Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos to examine credible claims of a prisoner's innocence.

To the enormous credit of that group, investigators were able to find key DNA evidence that resulted in establishing Green's innocence and identifying the actual assailants.

Green's long nightmare was due to end last Thursday, in a hearing that would most likely release him on bond until his conviction and sentence could be overturned. Instead, Green made that long-awaited trip to the courtroom bound in handcuffs and shackles.

Green responded loudly and vehemently to that indignity, to the extent that he was not allowed into the courtroom, and the hearing was postponed until Friday. It was one last cruel blow, one insult too many from a justice system that had robbed him of his entire adult life. (He was 18 when he began serving a 75-year sentence.)

The reason for the restraints, said Harris County Sheriff's Office spokesman Alan Bernstein, was that Green came into the county jail classified as a violent criminal, and therefore needed to be taken to the courtroom in handcuffs and shackles. He told the Chronicle that no one had advised jail personnel of Green's special circumstances.

It's true that the sheriff's office is a giant bureaucracy (about 900 prisoners were transported to court on that same day) and procedures and protocols are necessary. But provision must be made, even in giant bureaucracies, for the rare occasion when business as usual becomes a travesty and must give way to humanity and common sense.

DA Lykos has said that should another such case arise she will alert the sheriff's office. (There was no official communication between the two offices on Green, said DA spokesman George Flynn.) Sheriff Adrian Garcia has said that in a similar situation, his office would suspend regular procedures.

"Everybody's learned from it," said sheriff's spokesman Bernstein. It would be a good idea for both offices to formalize that learning experience, and provide clear guidelines for future actions. This was a sad, unnecessary blow, not only to Green, but to Harris County's justice system, one that should never be allowed to happen again.

Source: Houston Chronicle, Aug.4, 2010