McKinley Cromedy

The Crime

On Aug. 28, 1992, a Black man entered the basement apartment of a 20-year-old Rutgers University student in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The man claimed he was wanted for murder and needed money to get to New York. He stole $40 and credit cards from her purse, then forced her into the kitchen where he sexually assaulted her.

Immediately after the man left her apartment, the student called the police and described her assailant and his clothing. She was taken to a hospital, where a rape kit was performed. 

The Investigation

The following day, the student was shown multiple slides and photographs of possible suspects, including one of 29-year-old McKinley Cromedy, but she could not identify her assailant. 

On April 7, 1993, almost eight months later, the victim saw Mr. Cromedy on the street and believed he was her attacker. Within fifteen minutes, she viewed Mr. Cromedy in a one-on-one show-up procedure and identified him as her attacker.

Saliva and blood samples were taken from Mr. Cromedy for analysis. On April 8, he was charged with aggravated sexual assault, burglary, robbery, terroristic threats, and criminal sexual contact.

The Trial

In July 1994, Mr. Cromedy went to trial in Middlesex County Superior Court. The victim testified that she remembered the distinctive walk of her attacker, which she called a “swagger.” A detective testified that he was familiar with Mr. Cromedy from prior arrests and agreed that Mr. Cromedy had a distinctive gait.

No forensic evidence linking Mr. Cromedy to the crime was presented. He was excluded as the source of fingerprints found in the victim’s apartment. Hair samples recovered from the victim were determined to belong to neither her nor Mr. Cromedy. Blood samples showed that Mr. Cromedy was a non-secretor, which meant that his blood type could not be determined by serological testing or compared to the rape kit.

The defense noted that the victim had never mentioned anything about her attacker’s gait until after she saw Mr. Cromedy on the street. When the defense noted that Mr. Cromedy had been excluded from fingerprints lifted at the scene, the prosecution countered by saying that as many as 10 people lived in the building and had access to the area where the prints were found.

The defense did not seek DNA testing because they felt the case was so strong that it wasn’t worth the risk of obtaining additional evidence.

On Aug. 1, 1994, the jury convicted Mr. Cromedy of aggravated sexual assault, second-degree robbery, third-degree burglary, third-degree aggravated criminal sexual contact, and third-degree terroristic threats. He was sentenced to 60 years in prison with 25 years of parole ineligibility.

The Exoneration

On appeal, Mr. Cromedy’s defense focused on the cross-racial identification, arguing that the trial judge had erroneously declined to instruct the jury on the permissibility of treating cross-racial identifications as less trustworthy than same-race identifications. The defense had proposed an instruction that said, in part: “You may consider, if you think it is appropriate to do so, whether the cross-racial nature of the identification has affected the accuracy of the witness’s original perception and/or accuracy of a subsequent identification.”

In 1998, in a split decision, the New Jersey Appellate Division rejected that argument and upheld Mr. Cromedy’s convictions. Appeals Division Judge James Shebell dissented, referring to findings by a state task force on minority issues that had recommended such an instruction be given. The judge declared that a jury instruction that “fails to call the jury’s attention to the problems of cross-racial identification […] denies minority defendants, such as McKinley Cromedy, their constitutional right to a fair trial.”

The case was further appealed to the New Jersey Supreme Court. On April 14, 1999, the court vacated Mr. Cromedy’s conviction and granted a new trial. In a unanimous opinion, the court held for the first time in New Jersey that a cross-racial instruction should be given “when, as in this present case, identification is a critical issue in the case and eyewitness’s cross-racial identification is not corroborated by other evidence giving it independent reliability.”

The court noted that the need for the instruction was readily apparent. “Indeed, some courtroom observers have commented that the ordinary person’s difficulty of cross-racial recognition is so commonplace as to be the subject of both cliché and joke: ‘they all look alike,’” the court wrote.

Prior to a retrial, the prosecution agreed to DNA testing. The tests were conducted by the New Jersey State Police crime laboratory and on Dec. 8, 1999, the testing excluded Mr. Cromedy. On Dec. 14, the convictions were vacated and Mr. Cromedy was released after spending more than five years in prison. On Dec. 20, the prosecution dismissed the charges.

Mr. Cromedy sought compensation from the state of New Jersey and, in 2002, he was awarded $133,800 and $15,975 in attorney fees.