When I walked out of prison in 2016, I had been behind bars for more than three decades. After two trials, a judge sentenced me to life for a rape and murder I did not commit. I’ll never forget my parents begging the court to spare my life. I narrowly avoided the death penalty, and it took 34 years for the state of Virginia to declare me an innocent man, but my parents did not live to see me freed.
Keith Harward in New York City. Photo by Alicia Maule/Innocence Project.
I was convicted on the testimony of two forensic dentists who said that my teeth matched marks left on the rape victim. In fact, six forensic dentists claimed that my teeth matched a bite mark on one of the victims. But 30 years later, DNA evidence definitively proved my innocence and pointed to another man as the real assailant.
I’m certainly not the only person who was convicted on the basis of flawed science; unreliable and faulty forensics have contributed to nearly half of wrongful convictions in the United States proven through DNA evidence. I’m hopeful that sharing my story through "The Innocence Files" will help to raise awareness of the inequity of our current justice system.
Watch now, then ask your friends and family to do the same.
Thank you — I'm so grateful to this entire community.
Keith Harward
Exonerated in 2016
The Innocence Project exonerates the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice. www.innocenceproject.org
