Wrongly Convicted Man To Be Exonerated After Computer Algorithm Leads To New Suspect

Nearly a decade into his life sentence for a murder he denied committing, Lydell Grant walked out of a Texas prison al thanks to DNA that was re-examined by a software program. 

Now 42-years-old, Grant is on a fast track to be exonerated after a judge recommended in December that Texas’ highest criminal court vacate his conviction. It is hoped that this occurs in the next few weeks.

Grant’s exoneration hinged on two prongs: DNA evidence which was reanalyzed through an emerging software and an unprecedented decision to use the findings to conduct an FBI criminal database search initiated by a third party not part of the original investigation. It was these two factors that led to the discovery of a new suspect who has been charged with the murder and has allegedly confessed. 

This newly emerging technology has the potential to solve cold cases and re-evaluate convictions that could pave the way for many exonerations for the wrongly convicted. 

A Match in the Database 

Grant’s odyssey through the criminal justice system began in late 2010 when Aaron Scheerhoorn was stabbed outside a Houston gay bar. Witnesses described the killer as a black man, roughly 25-30 years old and approximately 6 feet tall. Shortly after a media release, a tip came to police about a car that might belong to the suspect. Five days later, police pulled over Grant who was driving on a suspended licence in a vehicle matching the description.

Investigators eventually interviewed seven witnesses, six of which identified Grant as the suspect from a photo line-up.

Grant maintained his innocence and provided an alibi for his defence. Grant had a criminal record including aggravated robbery, drug use and theft. 

At Grant’s 2012 trial, the prosecutor based much of their case on the eyewitness testimony – a practice that plays a major role in wrongful acquittals. Additionally, jurors were told about DNA collected from under the fingernails of the victim which was in fact a mixture of two people, one of whom was the victim. Despite police being unable to determine who the second person was, an expert testified that they couldn’t rule out Grant. 

Grant’s alibi testified in his defence, but his uncontradicted evidence did not convince the jury. Grant was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in jail.  

 A Letter Writing Campaign

From his jail cell in Texas, grant began sending letters of his innocence to anybody he thought could help. Eventually, a letter arrived at the Innocence Project of Texas, which receives hundreds of inmate letters a month. In 2018, the Grant’s case was referred to the Texas A&M School of Law which partners with the Innocence Project of Texas. 

After reviewing the case an making an early determination that the prosecutor allowed inaccurate testimony to be put to the jury, the law students began the tedious job of going through the entire case, paying particular attention to the DNA report. After reviewing the report in detail, including the flaws in the technique used at the time, they were convinced that Grant’s DNA could not be part of the mixture. 

Last March, the law professor, Mike Ware and his students, began working with Angie Ambers, an associate professor of forensic science at the University of New Haven Connecticut.  

Years after Lydell Grant was convicted and sent to prison, there was a paradigm shift in how we interpreted DNA mixtures in criminal casework. Rather than having a human DNA analyst interpret a mixture of DNA, computer software programs were developed to reduce the subjectivity n interpretation. 

Ambers consulted with a company called Cybergenetics that created a software that had analyzed DNA samples from unidentified victims of the terrorist attacks of September, 11, 2001. The software worked and did what humans had failed to do – it determined that Grant’s DNA did not match that of the unknown male profile. 

Armed with this new information, they approached a crime lab that had access to an FBI database known as the Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS. 

This system allows crime labs to upload an unknown profile into the database and compare it for a possible match against that of one of the more than 14 million convicted criminals and those arrested already in the system. 

The lab hit. The DNA profile belonged to Jeronimo Carter, a man in Atlanta who police say left Houston shortly after Scheerhoorn’s murder. When confronted with the DNA it, Carter confessed to the murder. 

Cory Wilson is a criminal defence lawyer based in Calgary. If you have been charged with a criminal offence or are a suspect in a criminal investigation, call today for a free, no obligation consultation.