Wrongfully Convicted Man Files Suit Against City, Police Officials
Dwayne Dail, a man who has been forced to live much of his life in prison for a crime that he did not commit, has filed a lawsuit against the city of Goldsboro and several of its officials for mistakes he said led to his wrongful conviction and imprisonment.
The lawsuit alleges acts of negligence by Goldsboro officials, namely police officers and leaders who did not disclose the existence of evidence for more than 15 years.
Dail was exonerated in 2007 after DNA tests on a semen stain from a piece of long-forgotten evidence proved the truth that Dail had insisted upon all along: Another man had committed the crime for which he was serving time. This past spring, the real criminal was convicted of rape and will spend the rest of his life in prison.
An attorney for Dail sent a letter to Goldsboro officials in 1995 asking that evidence in his case be DNA-tested. Those capabilities didn't exist when Dail was first convicted in 1989.
Mr. Dail's criminal attorney was told that the evidence, namely the rape kit, had been destroyed in 1994. All the while, other evidence in the case was being held in the Goldsboro Police Department.
In April, Dail met the woman who had accused him of rape as a child. She and Dail have now become friends.
"Dwayne will never really recover from what happened to him in prison," said Mr. Dail’s civil attorney "No one should have to live through what he did."
