Ruling could free man from prison

In a scorching ruling today, the state Court of Appeals threw out the conviction of a man serving more than 60 years in prison on burglary, robbery and sexual assault charges, saying the Durham District Attorney's Office unfairly delayed his trial for nearly five years.

The ruling could lead to freedom for Frankie Delano Washington, 47, an auto mechanic who was convicted of multiple charges last year in a 2002 invasion of a family's home in Trinity Park in Durham. Because the opinion was unanimous, the state has no automatic right to take the appeal further.

The delay cost Washington his right to a speedy trial, Judge Douglas McCullough wrote for a three-judge panel. The delay "could have been avoided if the state had exercised even the slightest care during the course of this prosecution," McCullough wrote.

McCullough also suggested that Washington may be innocent.

The victims originally described their assailant as younger and taller than Washington. And they identified Washington as the burglar from a distance of about 20 feet in the dark, as police held him in custody outside a police car.

Judge Doug McCullough, who wrote today's opinion, pointed out that another man was arrested in a series of similar home invasions in and near Trinity Park after Washington's arrest. But Durham police never sought a comparison of the man's fingerprints with unidentified prints taken from evidence in Washington's case.

Prosecutors blamed the delay in Washington's trial in part to the length of time required for the SBI to analyze evidence in the case. But police and prosecutors took three years to submit the evidence to the SBI, with part of the delay coming even after a judge ordered lab tests of the evidence.

As it turned out, fingerprints and DNA evidence in the case did not match Washington.

Washington lost his right to a fair trial because of the delay, McCullough found. The delay impaired his ability to challenge the identification, caused the loss of circumstantial evidence and made it more likely that witnesses could have been mistaken when they identified him in court five years after the crime, McCullough wrote.