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03-16-2003, 10:05 AM
After harrowing prison stay, DNA retest gives him new futureBy ROMA KHANNA
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle
HEAR IT NOW
Audio: Former inmate Josiah Sutton talks about:
• How it feels to be out
• Maintaining his innocence and continuing to fight
• The first thing he wants to do as a free man
• The fact that the real rapist is still at large
• His future
Audio requires the free RealPlayer.
When his Elsik High School teammates took the field for the state football championship, Josiah Sutton was in prison.
While his classmates were heading off to jobs or college, Sutton was dealing with horrors most of them will never know -- he saw one man thrown to his death over a railing and another die after having his throat slashed; he spent nights in a barred cell, so depressed that he once asked his grandmother whether "it would be better if I didn't go on."
For Sutton, the Houston man released from prison last week after DNA tests concluded he could not have been the rapist Harris County prosecutors said he was, there would be no more Friday night heroics, no prom or graduation, no shot at a gridiron scholarship.
But thanks to the momentum to reopen old criminal cases, generated by a burgeoning scandal in the Houston Police Department crime lab, there may be a future.
"I want to find a way to take back my life," Sutton said. "This experience has changed me in ways that will never be erased, but I want to move forward."
Sutton, now 21, took the first steps of his new life Wednesday after a judge ordered him released on bond because new DNA tests found the evidence used to convict him of a 1998 rape was incorrectly processed by the HPD crime lab. His attorneys are asking the governor for a pardon; the district attorney is re-examining the case before deciding whether to join that request.
And so, 4 1/2 years into a 25-year sentence, Sutton emerged from the Harris County Jail in a T-shirt and pants with a towel hanging over his shoulder and some files in hand -- his only possessions. After praying at a mosque and enjoying a jubilant family reunion, one of Sutton's first destinations was the mall.
Sutton, who already has a GED, wants to go to school. He would like to revive an old talent that earned the family extra cash when he was a teen, cutting hair, and may one day open his own barbershop.
After he walked out of the jail, Sutton declared, "I am looking for success, period."
Sutton, a solid defensive lineman, captained the Elsik football team and attracted college scouts when he was just a sophomore.
"Watching him play, there was no doubt in my mind that he would get an athletic scholarship to any college," his uncle Theo Gueroy said. "I thought it would be an opportunity for him to get an education and be a role model for the younger kids."
The eldest of five children in a single-parent home, Sutton displayed responsibility early, earning him the nickname "Papa."
"He was the man of the family," said his mother, Carol Batie. "He looked out for everyone, went to school and worked to help me out. One of the first things he told me after we got the test results was, `Momma, I have to get out. I have a family to take care of.' "
Ina Miller, once the librarian at MacGregor Elementary School, attended by seven relatives from two generations of Sutton's family, remembers him as a "sweet little boy with a future."
Miller, who was an educator for 34 years and is now retired, said she never would have imagined Sutton would be anything else.
"You can see some children and know they are going on the wrong path," she said. "It never entered my mind that Josiah could be one of them. I couldn't imagine he could commit such a violent crime.
"I am heartbroken that he had what should have been the best and more carefree years of his life taken away from him."
Sutton says his first night in jail was his longest.
"I did not even know what I had been charged with," he said. "Those were the hardest hours of the whole four years."
Sutton was arrested Oct. 30, 1998, five days after a woman had been taken at gunpoint from her southwest Houston apartment, raped by two attackers and dumped in a field in Fort Bend County.
Sutton, who was 16 at the time, was walking down the street with a friend when the woman, driving past in her car, identified them as her assailants. She would later testify that she recognized them by their hats, which looked like the ones worn by the men who raped her.
Once charged with kidnapping and rape, Sutton and his friend submitted saliva and blood for comparison to material recovered from the attack. DNA tests conducted by the now-discredited HPD lab ruled out Sutton's friend as one of the rapists but included him.
At his trial, an HPD analyst testified that DNA from the rape was an exact match for Sutton, who turned 17 in jail while awaiting trial. But new tests of the samples have found the DNA of two unidentified men, neither of whom could be Sutton.
"I will never forget it," Batie said of the damning testimony that was central to securing her son's conviction. "Then when the sentence came, it was impossible for me to understand. They were saying my child would be in prison for 25 years, and he was just 17."
In the early months of his incarceration, Sutton faced a difficult adjustment to the Clemens Unit in Brazoria.
"This was a (teenager) physically defending himself against men," Batie said. "He witnessed another inmate getting his throat slashed. He saw the guy lying on the ground kicking, dying before his eyes.
"He saw another prisoner die after he was thrown over a railing. These are not things my child should have been watching."
In his first letter to his grandmother, Sutton wrote that "perhaps it would be better if I didn't go on," Batie said.
On the outside, his family also struggled. Batie faced caring for and supporting her four other children without the help and assistance of her eldest. Everyday life brought painful reminders, as when Batie would see clothes her son used to wear or restaurants where he used to eat.
Visits to prison were unbearable for Keturah Sutton, 20, who could bring herself to see her brother only a couple of times while he was away.
"I used to think to myself, `My brother should not have to be there, so I should not have to see him there,' " she recalled through tears.
Faye Daniels, Sutton's 72-year-old grandmother, would take the No. 5 bus one hour from her home every Saturday morning to see Sutton when he was in Harris County Jail.
"Crossing that bridge on San Jacinto going to the jailhouse was like tearing your heart out," she said.
With time, however, the deeply religious family came to terms with Sutton's imprisonment, working tirelessly for his freedom but also moving forward with life.
"I told Josiah, `They can imprison your body but not your mind,' " Batie said.
Sutton converted to Islam and eagerly studied the Quran. He also began to study the law; he wrote a letter requesting new tests on the DNA evidence exactly one year before the day he was released.
Sutton's letter started a long process that led to his release, a process that gained momentum when an independent audit uncovered consistent and widespread problems at the crime lab, including inadequately trained personnel, shoddy work and the potential for evidence contamination.
Along with more than 40 other cases -- including those of 16 death row inmates -- Sutton's was slated for retesting as the Harris County district attorney's office began a sweeping review of hundreds of cases processed at the HPD lab.
Sutton's case, the first for which retesting is complete, brought stunning results. As he embraces his freedom, he hopes his experience will clear up the problems that landed him in prison.
"There were times I sat in prison and thought I was going through this for nothing," he said. "I know there are others like me out there. If the price I have paid can help them, it will bring me some peace."
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle
HEAR IT NOW
Audio: Former inmate Josiah Sutton talks about:
• How it feels to be out
• Maintaining his innocence and continuing to fight
• The first thing he wants to do as a free man
• The fact that the real rapist is still at large
• His future
Audio requires the free RealPlayer.
When his Elsik High School teammates took the field for the state football championship, Josiah Sutton was in prison.
While his classmates were heading off to jobs or college, Sutton was dealing with horrors most of them will never know -- he saw one man thrown to his death over a railing and another die after having his throat slashed; he spent nights in a barred cell, so depressed that he once asked his grandmother whether "it would be better if I didn't go on."
For Sutton, the Houston man released from prison last week after DNA tests concluded he could not have been the rapist Harris County prosecutors said he was, there would be no more Friday night heroics, no prom or graduation, no shot at a gridiron scholarship.
But thanks to the momentum to reopen old criminal cases, generated by a burgeoning scandal in the Houston Police Department crime lab, there may be a future.
"I want to find a way to take back my life," Sutton said. "This experience has changed me in ways that will never be erased, but I want to move forward."
Sutton, now 21, took the first steps of his new life Wednesday after a judge ordered him released on bond because new DNA tests found the evidence used to convict him of a 1998 rape was incorrectly processed by the HPD crime lab. His attorneys are asking the governor for a pardon; the district attorney is re-examining the case before deciding whether to join that request.
And so, 4 1/2 years into a 25-year sentence, Sutton emerged from the Harris County Jail in a T-shirt and pants with a towel hanging over his shoulder and some files in hand -- his only possessions. After praying at a mosque and enjoying a jubilant family reunion, one of Sutton's first destinations was the mall.
Sutton, who already has a GED, wants to go to school. He would like to revive an old talent that earned the family extra cash when he was a teen, cutting hair, and may one day open his own barbershop.
After he walked out of the jail, Sutton declared, "I am looking for success, period."
Sutton, a solid defensive lineman, captained the Elsik football team and attracted college scouts when he was just a sophomore.
"Watching him play, there was no doubt in my mind that he would get an athletic scholarship to any college," his uncle Theo Gueroy said. "I thought it would be an opportunity for him to get an education and be a role model for the younger kids."
The eldest of five children in a single-parent home, Sutton displayed responsibility early, earning him the nickname "Papa."
"He was the man of the family," said his mother, Carol Batie. "He looked out for everyone, went to school and worked to help me out. One of the first things he told me after we got the test results was, `Momma, I have to get out. I have a family to take care of.' "
Ina Miller, once the librarian at MacGregor Elementary School, attended by seven relatives from two generations of Sutton's family, remembers him as a "sweet little boy with a future."
Miller, who was an educator for 34 years and is now retired, said she never would have imagined Sutton would be anything else.
"You can see some children and know they are going on the wrong path," she said. "It never entered my mind that Josiah could be one of them. I couldn't imagine he could commit such a violent crime.
"I am heartbroken that he had what should have been the best and more carefree years of his life taken away from him."
Sutton says his first night in jail was his longest.
"I did not even know what I had been charged with," he said. "Those were the hardest hours of the whole four years."
Sutton was arrested Oct. 30, 1998, five days after a woman had been taken at gunpoint from her southwest Houston apartment, raped by two attackers and dumped in a field in Fort Bend County.
Sutton, who was 16 at the time, was walking down the street with a friend when the woman, driving past in her car, identified them as her assailants. She would later testify that she recognized them by their hats, which looked like the ones worn by the men who raped her.
Once charged with kidnapping and rape, Sutton and his friend submitted saliva and blood for comparison to material recovered from the attack. DNA tests conducted by the now-discredited HPD lab ruled out Sutton's friend as one of the rapists but included him.
At his trial, an HPD analyst testified that DNA from the rape was an exact match for Sutton, who turned 17 in jail while awaiting trial. But new tests of the samples have found the DNA of two unidentified men, neither of whom could be Sutton.
"I will never forget it," Batie said of the damning testimony that was central to securing her son's conviction. "Then when the sentence came, it was impossible for me to understand. They were saying my child would be in prison for 25 years, and he was just 17."
In the early months of his incarceration, Sutton faced a difficult adjustment to the Clemens Unit in Brazoria.
"This was a (teenager) physically defending himself against men," Batie said. "He witnessed another inmate getting his throat slashed. He saw the guy lying on the ground kicking, dying before his eyes.
"He saw another prisoner die after he was thrown over a railing. These are not things my child should have been watching."
In his first letter to his grandmother, Sutton wrote that "perhaps it would be better if I didn't go on," Batie said.
On the outside, his family also struggled. Batie faced caring for and supporting her four other children without the help and assistance of her eldest. Everyday life brought painful reminders, as when Batie would see clothes her son used to wear or restaurants where he used to eat.
Visits to prison were unbearable for Keturah Sutton, 20, who could bring herself to see her brother only a couple of times while he was away.
"I used to think to myself, `My brother should not have to be there, so I should not have to see him there,' " she recalled through tears.
Faye Daniels, Sutton's 72-year-old grandmother, would take the No. 5 bus one hour from her home every Saturday morning to see Sutton when he was in Harris County Jail.
"Crossing that bridge on San Jacinto going to the jailhouse was like tearing your heart out," she said.
With time, however, the deeply religious family came to terms with Sutton's imprisonment, working tirelessly for his freedom but also moving forward with life.
"I told Josiah, `They can imprison your body but not your mind,' " Batie said.
Sutton converted to Islam and eagerly studied the Quran. He also began to study the law; he wrote a letter requesting new tests on the DNA evidence exactly one year before the day he was released.
Sutton's letter started a long process that led to his release, a process that gained momentum when an independent audit uncovered consistent and widespread problems at the crime lab, including inadequately trained personnel, shoddy work and the potential for evidence contamination.
Along with more than 40 other cases -- including those of 16 death row inmates -- Sutton's was slated for retesting as the Harris County district attorney's office began a sweeping review of hundreds of cases processed at the HPD lab.
Sutton's case, the first for which retesting is complete, brought stunning results. As he embraces his freedom, he hopes his experience will clear up the problems that landed him in prison.
"There were times I sat in prison and thought I was going through this for nothing," he said. "I know there are others like me out there. If the price I have paid can help them, it will bring me some peace."