Jailed at 15 -- wrongly, he says

Man, now 21, says prints of an S.C. inmate would prove innocence

DURHAM -- A 21-year-old man who has spent nearly a third of his life behind bars for an armed robbery he insists he had nothing to do with is looking toward a South Carolina inmate to help free him.

Judge Orlando Hudson issued an order this month that gives Erick Daniels and his lawyers permission to interview Samuel Allen Strong at the federal prison in Salters, S.C.

Daniels was 15 in December 2001 when he was convicted of burglary and using a dangerous weapon to rob a Durham Police Department employee.

When the verdict came in, Daniels tried to jump a barricade and run for the door.

Since then he has battled for freedom.

His attempts with the N.C. Court of Appeals were unsuccessful and fraught with delays.

Carlos Mahoney, a Durham civil rights lawyer, picked up the case several years ago and has been advocating for Daniels since.

After reviewing the trial evidence, Mahoney is convinced that Daniels had ineffective counsel.

Mahoney has filed a motion for a new trial, contending that new evidence has surfaced and that prosecutors withheld information that could have helped Daniels.

The case hinged on identification of Daniels by a key witness in a photo-lineup procedure that, according to court documents, was as flawed as the notorious one in the Duke lacrosse case.

The witness, according to court documents, identified Daniels from a middle school yearbook photo after 30 minutes of study.

The state, according to court documents, offered no physical evidence or corroborating testimony linking Daniels to the robbery.

Ruth Brown, the witness, told police that two armed men with bandannas burst into her home on Sept. 21, 2000, and stole her pocketbook with $6,232 in cash.

Mahoney contends that Daniels' trial lawyer should have challenged the identification procedure. He also contends that Daniels' trial attorneys should have investigated Strong who, according to court documents, matched the description of one suspect and was in photos with the second suspect.

Mahoney has asked a judge to force the Durham police to turn over fingerprints and palm prints for Strong so they can be compared with evidence recovered at the robbery scene.

Durham police refused in October 2006 to supply Mahoney with the evidence.

"They refused even though it's public record," Mahoney said recently.

Daniels, who was sentenced to 10 to 14 years, is scheduled to go before a judge again in September. By then he would have served more than half the sentence he received, but Mahoney hopes to persuade a judge to give the Durham man a new chance at freedom.