After 44 years, a Black man has been freed from prison following a wrongful conviction of raping a white woman. Unheard evidence that was seemingly hidden is finally revealed.
In 1976, Ronnie Long was accused of rape by a white woman named #SarahJudsonBost, who falsely claimed Long held her at knifepoint in her Concord home on the evening of April 25 and raped her. After being arrested, he was convicted by an all-white jury and sentenced to life in prison for first-degree rape and first-degree burglary.
On Thursday, Long was freed after serving 44 years in prison after the state of North Carolina filed a motion in federal court on Wednesday, seeking to vacate his 1976 conviction, NBC News reports. During a talk with reporters, Long said, “They will never ever, never ever, ever, lock me up again. This is real. I’m going to try to enjoy every minute of it.” It’s all thanks to his attorney, Jamie Lau, a professor with the Duke Law Innocence Project, who said that forensic reports implicated another suspect, and those documents were never turned over to the defense by the state and that police “perjured themselves” during Long’s trial.
On Monday, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided that Long’s rights were violated when evidence that showed his innocence wasn’t included during his trial in Cabarrus County. Long was just 20 when he was accused of raping Bost, 54.
Two weeks after the incident occurred, detectives said they had a hunch that the rapist was among the defendants in court that day and asked Bost to go to the county courthouse, record stats. Long was then called in regard to a trespassing case, and the victim claimed she recognized his voice. She also chose Long’s photo in a lineup. Long was the only person wearing a leather jacket, which Bost said matched the wardrobe of her attacker.
Long’s mother and the mother of his toddler son at the time said that he was on a group phone call with them when the attack was reported to have happened, records show. Long was living with his mother and was about to head to a party in Charlotte that night, they said. The 4th Circuit opinion, led by Judge Stephanie D. Thacker, said there is “a troubling and striking pattern of deliberate police suppression of material evidence.” Lab results didn’t link Long to the crime scene; DNA evidence went missing, and 43 latent fingerprints from the scene weren’t Long’s; those are just some of the pieces of evidence that were never heard, according to the opinion.
“The violent racial history of this country necessarily informs the background of this case: a Black man accused of raping a white woman is tried in 1976 by an all-white jury,” the opinion states.
