Profiles

Years transpired between initial arrest and exoneration - 16
Causes of Wrongful Conviction - Eyewitness Misidentification
Exoneration Date - September 30, 2008

On September 30, 2008, sixteen years after his arrest, all charges were dropped against Arthur Johnson, after it was revealed that the DNA testing that led to his release in February pointed directly to another man who is in prison for sexual assault in Colorado. Arthur Johnson is the fourth man to be exonerated in Mississippi since 2006.

IPNO began seeking DNA testing in Arthur's case in August 2005 and on November 30, 2007, he was completely excluded as the donor of male DNA found on the underwear worn by the victim when she was raped. In February 2008, the Sunflower County Circuit Court vacated Mr. Johnson's conviction on the basis of new DNA test results and ordered a new trial. Arthur was released on bond. The Sunflower County District Attorney's Office planned to re-try Mr. Johnson in spite of the DNA test excluding him, claiming that the eyewitness identification was accurate. IPNO insisted that before he was re-tried, the unknown DNA profile generated from the victim's underwear be run through the state and federal databases of convicted offender profiles.

On September 26, 2008, the unknown profile was revealed to match a man who was convicted of burglary and sexual assault in Sunflower County in 1992, the same year and in the same place as the crime occurred for which Mr. Johnson was convicted. This man was sent to prison, released in 2002 and went on to commit another sexual assault, for which he is currently incarcerated. The Sunflower County District Attorney's Office subsequently dropped the charges against Arthur. He has not yet received an apology.