A Black man was released from prison on Thursday after serving 44 years for a rape he says he did not commit.
Ronnie Long, 64, was later released the state of North Carolina filed a motion in in federal court Wednesday his 1976 conviction by leaving an all-white jury. He was sentenced to life in prison for first-degree rape and first-degree burglary.
“They will never, ever, lock me up again,” Long told reporters after he was released. “This is real. I’ll try to enjoy it every minute.”
His lawyer, Jamie Lau, a professor with the Duke Law Innocence Project, said that forensic reports implicating another suspect were not transferred to the defense by the state and that police “perjured” themselves during Long’s trial.
A panel of three judges from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that Long’s rights were violated when evidence pointing to his innocence was not weighed during his trial in Cabarrus County.
Lang was about 20 when he was accused of raping Sarah Judson Bost (54) at a stabbing point in her Concord home on the evening of April 25, 1976.
Two weeks after the attack, detectives said they had a hunch that the assailant had been in court that day asking Bost to go to the county courthouse, the records say. When Long was called regarding a violation case, the victim said she recognized his voice.
She later picked up Long from a photo shoot. He was the only one in the lineup who wore a leather jacket of the type she attributed to her attacker, according to courts.
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Long’s mother and the mother of his 2-year-old son at the time said he was with her on a group phone call when the attack was reported to have taken place, the records say. Long lived with his mother and was preparing to attend a party that night in Charlotte, they said.
The opinion of the 4th Circuit, led by Judge Stephanie D. Thacker, called “a worrying and striking pattern of deliberate police suppression of material evidence.”
A main argument of prosecutors before the jury, it said, was that “police acted honestly.”
Unheard evidence, the opinion said, included results of lab tests that did not link Long to the crime, DNA evidence that was missing, and 43 latent fingerprints of the scene that were not Long’s.
“The violent racial history of this country necessarily informs the background of this case: a Black man accused of raping a white woman was tried in 1976 by an all-white jury,” the opinion states.
Following the 1976 conviction, which included the “systematic exclusion” of Black jurors, the 4th Circuit Opinion, Long appealed, lost, and filed a motion for relief 10 years later.
He has since fought for his innocence.
The case is not completely closed. Local prosecutors were able to prosecute again. But Lau does not think that will happen.
“I’m optimistic that the latter will fall,” he said. “What evidence could the state present? There is none.”
Lang said he always had confidence that his innocence would be revealed.
“Always believe that you can overcome,” he said.
He was looking forward to catching up with family he had not yet met.
“I have nieces and nephews here, you understand, they do not even know me,” he said. “And a grandmother.”
