Using the same DNA evidence that exonerated a man falsely convicted of rape, Baltimore County police arrested a new suspect yesterday in the 20-year-old crime.
Darren Lyndell Powell, 36, of the 1000 block of Harlem Ave. was arrested yesterday morning and faces charges of first- and second-degree rape, first-degree assault, first-degree sex offense and first-degree burglary in the 1982 home invasion and rape of a Towson schoolteacher.
It is the same crime for which Bernard Webster served 20 years in jail. With the help of local attorneys and the Maryland public defender's Innocence Project, Webster had his DNA checked against evidence collected when the crime was committed.
It didn't match. Webster was freed Nov. 7 under a new law that allows judges to order DNA testing for people serving sentences for murder and rape when that testing could prove their innocence.
After Webster was freed, county police detectives decided to take another look at the evidence in the case, said police spokesman Bill Toohey. A technician examined it and compared it to the state's growing database of DNA samples.
State law now requires convicted felons to provide DNA samples, and Powell has been convicted of numerous crimes, including theft and drug possession. The technician discovered the DNA match.
"This system is beginning to take hold now," Toohey said. "I imagine one day it's going to be the way fingerprints are."
Once detectives found the match, they obtained a warrant for Powell's arrest. They took him into custody without incident at 8:45 a.m. yesterday in the 1700 block of Union Ave. in Baltimore as Powell was on his way to work.
He is being held without bail at the Baltimore County Detention Center and is scheduled to appear before a judge for a bail review hearing today.
Webster was convicted in the crime in 1983 largely on the strength of eyewitness testimony. He made regular requests to the Maryland public defender's Innocence Project over the years, asking for help in proving he did not commit the crime. But there was little the attorneys could do until the advent of DNA evidence.
Nina Morrison, executive director of the national Innocence Project at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City, said that in the 115 cases nationwide in which someone has been exonerated by DNA evidence, that same evidence has been used to convict someone else 27 times.
That figure is particularly remarkable, she said, because many states are severely backlogged in their efforts to enter DNA evidence into databases.
"I think there are a lot of lessons to be learned here, and one of them is that freeing the innocent is not contrary to good law enforcement," Morrison said.
"If the Baltimore County Innocence Project hadn't taken on Mr. Webster's case, not only would this innocent man still be in prison, but the real perpetrator would be out walking the streets and not brought to justice," she said.
Morrison added that the case also shows that DNA evidence can right some - but not all - wrongs. Resurrecting the case can bring up tremendous pain and suffering for the victim of the crime, Webster still lost 20 years of his life, and the state has no direct mechanism to compensate him, she said.
"For now, there's an outpouring of support from the citizens of Baltimore County, but after the media attention fades, he's going to be left with lasting scars," Morrison said.
The rape victim said yesterday that she didn't want to discuss the case. The Sun does not identify sexual assault victims.