A Suffolk County District Attorney is pleading with a judge to overturn a 1974 rape conviction of a black man who has spent decades in prison, after his victim previously admitted she may have mistakenly identified him.
Tyrone Clark, now 66, spent 47 years in prison after he was convicted of raping and kidnapping Anne Kane, 23, in June 1973, after he broke into her Back Bay apartment and raped her at knifepoint.
Clark, who was 18 at the time, was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole.
On Friday, Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins filed a motion supporting Clark's petition for a new trial, citing a 2019 letter Kane, now 71, sent to the Parole Board about Clark's innocence.
According to the letter, Kane stated: 'I am no longer absolutely sure that my identification was correct.'
Kane, who is a white woman, said she trusted the courts to provide a fair trial at the time, but now sees the overwhelming flaws within the criminal justice system.
She argues that because she didn't know any black people at the time, her ability to properly identify her assailant was affected.
Tyrone Clark, now 66, spent 47 years in prison after he was convicted of raping and kidnapping Anne Kane, 23, in June 1973, after he broke into her Back Bay apartment and raped her at knifepoint
'It is a well proven fact at this point that eyewitness identification is incredibly unreliable, and I had no experience in differentiating black faces,' Kane said. 'I can see how I might have been wrong.'
During his interview with WGBH, Clark said he's appreciative of Kane for speaking out and feels only empathy for her situation.
'I feel sad concerning what happened to her back then,' he said. 'But I feel good that she came forward. It took a lot of years to come forward.'
In an interview with WGBH Monday, Rollins said she doesn't 'believe justice was done with respect to the rape charge,' as the case awaits a new hearing in Suffolk County Superior Court.
Rollins said her office's Integrity Review Bureau reviewed Kane's letter and additional details of the case and discovered the state inadvertently destroyed key evidence that could have aided Clark's cause.
She added that Clark's sentence was 'significant' especially
