FORT WORTH -- A 48-year-old Fort Worth man sentenced to life in prison in 1989 for raping a 14-year-old girl has been cleared by DNA evidence, officials said Monday.
David Lee Wiggins, who has served 23 years for the crime, should be immediately released on bond pending a final decision by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the Tarrant County district attorney is recommending.A Tarrant County jury sentenced Wiggins to life in prison in August 1989 after finding him guilty of breaking into a Fort Worth home and raping the girl in June 1988.According to a news release from the district attorney's office, the attacker covered the girl's face with a towel but she removed it three times to see his face. She later identified Wiggins as her rapist."The case was essentially just a one-witness identification case which has been responsible for so many wrongful convictions," said Nina Morrison, Wiggins' attorney with the Innocence Project in New York. "It's very powerful for a jury when a young girls says, 'That's the man and I'm positive.'"Wiggins filed handwritten motions before and after his trial asking for DNA testing.He was turned down, Morrison said, "because the judge at the time and the state believed the technology wasn't good enough to get DNA results using the limited amount of material that was available."She said she agrees that the technology "would not have been enough" for a successful test."If they had ordered the testing back then, they might have consumed all the evidence and there would have been nothing left," Morrison said. "It's heartbreaking to read his old DNA motions, but we are very fortunate that the testing happened right at the time when the technology was improving so dramatically."'Singing God's praises'Morrison said she began working Wiggins' case in 2007 after he wrote a letter to the Innocence Project asking for help.That October, she filed a motion for post-conviction DNA testing in the case, to which the district attorney's office agreed.A nationally recognized laboratory conducted the tests and issued three reports, the latest in June 2010. Though the tests excluded Wiggins as a contributor to DNA evidence found on some of the girl's clothing, no male DNA profile could be detected in sperm found on her underwear and from a rape kit.More sophisticated testing was then done at a California lab on her clothing at the request of the Innocence Project.On Aug. 9, the district attorney's office said it was informed that the lab "was able to detect a sperm cell fraction on the girl's clothing that excluded Wiggins as its donor."Morrison said she called Wiggins about the DNA report Thursday and told him that while the prosecutors seemed to be taking the results very seriously, it would likely be a couple of weeks before the prosecutor's opinion and plans would be known.Shortly after hanging up with Wiggins, she received a call from the district attorney's office, indicating "they were now convinced he was absolutely innocent and they wanted to do all they could to get him out as soon as possible," she said.Morrison said she had to get special permission from the prison warden to talk to Wiggins a second time that day. Wiggins, whom she described as a "very religious Christian," was at choir practice when he was summoned to the phone again."He told me he was literally singing God's praises at the moment they told him I was on the phone again with the good news," Morrison said. "He was thrilled and a little bit tearful and so grateful for everything everyone had done to get him to this point."Hearing setfor FridayThe district attorney's office has requested that Wiggins be immediately returned to Tarrant County from the Goree Unit in Huntsville and released on bond. A hearing is scheduled for Friday in 213th District Court."If current state-of-the art DNA testing had been available in 1989, there is no doubt Mr. Wiggins would have been acquitted," District Attorney Joe Shannon said in a news release Monday afternoon. "We will continue to cooperate with legitimate requests for post-conviction testing. The job of this office is not just to convict, but to see that justice is done."Officials said Wiggins is the second Tarrant County defendant to be cleared by post-conviction DNA testing.In December 2001, Mark Amos Webb was released from jail after DNA tests proved he was wrongly convicted of the sexual assault of a woman who falsely identified him as her attacker. He had served 13 years of a 30-year prison sentence.He died in 2005 of natural causes.Deanna Boyd, 817-390-7655Twitter: @deannaboydHave more to add? News tip? Tell us
