THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 21, 1994 TAG: 9410210664
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines
Edward Honaker, who has spent 10 years in prison for a rape that genetic tests now show he did not commit, will be freed as early as today, sources familiar with the case said Thursday.
After four months of deliberation, investigation and conflicting scientific analyses, Gov. George F. Allen has decided to grant Honaker's clemency request, the sources said. The decision will be announced at a news conference scheduled for 10:30 a.m., one source said.
Honaker will be only the second man freed from prison in Virginia as a result of sophisticated DNA technology and one of an estimated 15 across the nation. A third Virginia man, Earl Washington Jr., was spared from death row in January by then-Gov. L. Douglas Wilder on his last day in office, but Washington's sentence was commuted to life in prison.
Allen's office would not discuss the Honaker case Thursday. ``I cannot confirm or deny that any decision has been made by the governor,'' said press secretary Ken Stroupe. ``At the appropriate time, when I have an indication from the governor that he's made a decision, we will make an announcement.''
Honaker, 44, sitting in a cell in Nottoway Correctional Center in Burkeville, was told that a decision could come today but was not told what it would be, his attorney said.
``He can't eat,'' said attorney Barry C. Scheck. ``He's been unable to eat lunch, he's been unable to eat dinner. He's too nervous. Oct. 27th will be his 10th year in prison.''
Like most cases revolving around the relatively new forensic procedures, Honaker's plight attracted national attention. Advocates for the carpenter-welder from Roanoke had complained bitterly that the law-and-order Republican governor was dragging his feet on freeing an innocent man. But Allen has said he wanted to be absolutely sure before he made up his mind. He ordered a new police investigation and further scientific tests before ultimately being persuaded by the DNA evidence, sources said.
Honaker will owe his freedom to a few tiny sperm still present on a 10-year-old cotton swab. The vaginal swab taken from the rape victim in 1984 provided little useful evidence at the time, but with the advent of reliable genetic testing the partial sample became a new window on what happened that summer night in rural Nelson County.
Asleep with her boyfriend in a parked car off the Blue Ridge Parkway, the 19-year-old victim was awakened and abducted at gunpoint by a camouflage-clad man, driven to a remote cabin and repeatedly raped and sodomized on the tailgate of his truck and on a sleeping bag.
Based on her description, police eventually arrested Honaker and she identified him at trial as her assailant. Honaker was sentenced to three life terms plus 34 years.
In the past year, however, his case has taken many twists and turns.
Because Honaker had a vasectomy, his advocates argued that sperm found in the victim's body could not have been his. Prosecutors initially claimed that the sperm were from consensual sex with the victim's boyfriend and that Honaker had indeed raped the woman. But last winter, tests determined that the genetic characteristics of the sperm sample did not match those of the boyfriend.
After Honaker filed a clemency petition in June, police investigators returned to the victim, who disclosed for the first time that she had secretly been having sex with another man at the same time. Another round of tests concluded that the sperm could have been the other man's, still leaving open the possibility that Honaker was the rapist.
But then Honaker's advocates sent the sample back to their California laboratory, which used a newer, more-precise DNA test that ruled out the secret lover. The state's lab has since confirmed the result. This meant that the sperm must have come from the rapist.
``The technology itself is incontrovertible in terms of its reliability,'' said Paul B. Ferrara, director of the Virginia Division of Forensic Science. ``The fact of the matter is that based on the DNA results and the information provided to us, I don't see how there could be any other conclusion.''
Scheck, who is working on the O.J. Simpson defense team to dispute DNA evidence in that case, said the Honaker case proves that many innocent people are sent to prison. ``I think there are thousands,'' he said. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
DNA tests show that Edward Honaker did not commit the rape he was
convicted of.
KEYWORDS: RAPE SEX CRIME DNA RELEASE by CNB