Judges free 2 men in N.C. innocence review

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-09-22/innocence-prisoners-freed/50519198/1

By Jon Ostendorff, USA TODAY
Updated 9/23/2011 5:45 AM

ASHEVILLE, N.C. – Two men who spent a decade in prison on murder charges were set free Thursday after a panel of judges in North Carolina ruled they were not guilty.

The three-judge panel made its decision after seven days of testimony in the case against Kenneth Kagonyera, 31, and Robert Wilcoxson, 32.

Wilcoxson was the first to be released. He hugged his 10-year-old daughter, Taneea, and his father as he walked out of jail hours after the hearing. He left quickly, saying only that his plans for his first night as a free man in nearly a decade were simple. "Pray," he said.

Kagonyera left jail hours later to applause and hugs and kisses from his mother and grandmother.

"It was a blessing," he said. Kagonyera said he had prepared himself for the panel to rule against his claim though he tried not to dwell on the prospect of going back to prison. He said his plans are to "get a job, move on and put this behind me."

"I am just so happy I don't know what to say," said Charlene Holmes, Kagonyera's mother.

The hearing came after the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission in April found enough evidence to indicate the men were not guilty, including the confession of another man and DNA testing that pointed to other suspects.

The men had pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the slaying of Walter Bowman in 2000, though they repeatedly claimed they were innocent. Their attorneys at the hearing said the men admitted to the murder to avoid life sentences.

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North Carolina is among a growing number of states taking steps to prevent and address wrongful convictions and grant greater access to biological evidence. It has the nation's only investigative innocence commission.

Until recently, that was largely the purview of the privately funded Innocence Project, which has been involved in 154 DNA exonerations in the USA since 1989, according to the group's research director, Emily West.

The North Carolina commission has heard three other cases, one of which resulted in the release of a man who served almost 17 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit. A three-judge panel found Greg Taylor innocent in February 2010.

Twenty-eight percent of exonerations nationally have involved defendants who pleaded guilty, falsely confessed or made incriminating statements to police, according to the Innocence Project.

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