‘A long wait.’ Cooper pardons Howard Dudley nearly 30 years after wrongful conviction

Howard Dudley was on his way home, having picked up a sandwich Tuesday morning, when his lawyers called. They sung him a Christmas tune, then delivered a gift.

Dudley, who spent nearly 24 years in prison over false allegations he sexually assaulted his 9-year-old daughter, had been granted a pardon by North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper.

“They hit me with the news as I was driving. I had to pull over,” Dudley, now 65, said Tuesday night in a telephone interview. “I was overcome with emotion. It had been a long wait, been a long wait. I was sort of emotional. I pulled over and parked.”

The pardon came almost six years after he was freed from prison. In 2016, his daughter recanted her testimony and a judge found other legal flaws in the case.

The Lenoir County man maintained his innocence from when he was first accused in 1991, turning down a plea deal in 1992 because he refused to admit to any wrongdoing, The News & Observer reported in 2016. He was sentenced to life in prison and refused to apply for parole because it would have meant accepting responsibility for something he didn’t do.

Dudley’s daughter, Amy Moore, had testified at his trial that he had sexually abused her, the only evidence against him. She changed her story months after Dudley’s conviction. The News & Observer published a four-part series in 2005 by reporter Joseph Neff, chronicling the case after Dudley’s daughter said she made up the story.

Dudley said his daughter called him Tuesday and that he does not blame his daughter, but “the system,” which he says didn’t recognize a young girl not being able to keep her story straight.

“We have a good relationship. She has a problem getting over what she did. I try to hold her hand and let her know that I love her and support her,” Dudley said Tuesday. “She was very traumatized by what she did. I thought when I was out, the healing process would begin. And it has. But she still brings it up.”

Seeking a pardon

Dudley said in 2016 — after he was freed from prison — that he wanted his name cleared.

“These type of charges are very bad charges. I didn’t commit any of these acts. I need healing, and so does Amy,” Dudley said in 2016.

Now the state of North Carolina has agreed. The pardon application was reviewed by the Office of Executive Clemency, the Office of the General Counsel and Cooper, the governor’s office said in its release.

“I have carefully reviewed Howard Denice Dudley’s case and am granting him a Pardon of Innocence,” Cooper said in a statement. “Mr. Dudley and others who have been wrongly convicted deserve to have that injustice fully and publicly acknowledged.”

The pardon makes Dudley eligible to file a claim for compensation under state laws for people wrongly convicted of felonies.

“All I want is what belongs to me, what is due to me. I just want what is due to me. I’m still in the process of trying to get my life back on track,” he told The N&O Tuesday.

In 2016, when Dudley was released, Superior Court Judge W. Douglas Parsons said there were at least three flaws in Dudley’s trial, including not having access to Moore’s inconsistent and improbable versions of what happened, Moore’s false testimony and the lack of preparation by Dudley’s inexperienced attorney.

Moore told the court on at least two occasions, in 2000 and 2016, that she had made up the story.

“I would love to put my arms around her and tell her I love her and I forgive her,” Dudley said in an interview in June 2016. “I’m sorry she’s gone through all the hurt all these years, having to endure needless pain.”

This story was originally published December 21, 2021 at 12:50 PM.