"Evidence of prosecutorial misconduct that could exonerate a man who
has spent 21 years in prison for a double murder will be at center stage
during a hearing in a North Carolina courtroom this week. A judge two years ago threw out Darryl Howard's 1995 conviction but
the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled a new hearing was needed. He
remains imprisoned. The hearing starting Monday could highlight whether evidence that
could have proved Howard's innocence was withheld by prosecutors and
police. Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson said in 2014 he remembered
observing Howard's murder trial as it was under way. He called it "a
horrendous prosecution" that ignored that "there was extremely credible,
strong evidence that Mr. Howard did not commit" the crime. Howard was on the verge of being released on bail pending a retrial
until Attorney General Roy Cooper's office stepped in. As the chief
attorney for the state, Cooper is responsible for defending criminal
prosecutions when they are challenged. Howard, 54, is being held in
medium security at a Warren County prison. Expected to testify at the hearing is former Durham County district
attorney Mike Nifong, whom Hudson said in his 2014 ruling failed to
share with defense attorneys a police memo and other evidence that
pointed to suspects other than Howard. The Howard prosecution isn't the first to tarnish Nifong. He was
disbarred in June 2007 for his handling of the tumultuous Duke
University lacrosse case, in which three Duke athletes were accused of
raping a stripper hired to entertain a team party. State investigators
later determined Nifong lied and buried evidence proving the lacrosse
players were innocent... ..... More than a decade before the 2006 Duke case was the Howard case. He
was sentenced to 80 years in prison in 1995 after being convicted in the
strangling of 29-year-old Doris Washington and her daughter,
13-year-old Nishonda. Both were sexually assaulted, and their apartment
was burned. .......The State does not
contest that post-conviction DNA testing identified foreign male DNA
that was not detected and could not have been discovered with the
exercise of reasonable diligence at the time of Howard's trial," wrote
Charlotte attorney Jim Cooney and Barry Scheck, who was part of retired
NFL star O.J. Simpson's defense team. It wasn't until a few years ago that Howard's attorneys found a
Durham police memo about an informant's tip that the convicted killer's
attorney said wasn't turned over before the murder trial, the Court of
Appeals said. The police tipster knew that the women were raped before
being killed, which investigators hadn't told the public, a police
captain noted." (Associated Press);