James Curtis Giles

The Crime

Around 11:30 p.m. on August 1, 1982, three Black men armed with guns entered the house of a Dallas couple. While one of the men robbed the male victim at gunpoint, the other two raped the female victim, who was five months pregnant. The third later joined in.

Afterward, the police took her to the hospital, where a rape kit was collected.

The Investigation 

The next day, the female victim identified one of the assailants as Stanley Bryant, who the couple had been acquainted with and recognized during the attack. 

A month later, acting on a Crime Stoppers tip that one of the rapists was named “James Giles” led police to suspect 28-year-old James Curtis Giles, who lived 25 miles away in Duncanville. Not only was he a decade older than the victim had described, but he also had two prominent gold teeth, which she had never mentioned.

When shown a photographic lineup that included Mr. Giles’ picture, the female victim identified him as one of the three rapists. The male victim did not identify Mr. Giles. Based on the one of the victims’ identifications, Mr. Giles was arrested in January 1983 and charged with aggravated rape.

The Trial

In June 1983, Mr. Giles went to trial in Dallas County Criminal District Court. The female victim identified him as her attacker in court. 

Mr. Giles testified that, on the night of the crime, he and his wife had gone out for dinner at a restaurant before returning home to sleep early. 

On June 9, Mr. Giles was convicted of aggravated rape and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

The Exoneration

In 1984, Mr. Bryant pleaded guilty to being one of the attackers and was sentenced to 23 years in prison. In 1985, he signed an affidavit that Mr. Giles was not the “James” who participated in the crime. 

In 1989, while in the commissary line at the Coffield Unit of the Texas Department of Corrections, Mr. Giles met Marvin S. Moore, who had lived near the couple. Mr. Moore explained that he had been the man who called Crime Stoppers during the investigation with the tip that one of the perpetrators was named “James Giles.” He had been referring to James Earl Giles, a teenager who lived across the street from the couple.

In 1991, the Dallas County District Attorney’s office began investigating Mr. Giles’ claim that he was innocent. However, the investigation went nowhere. Mr. Giles was released on parole on July 28, 1993, and was required to register as a sex offender.

The Innocence Project agreed to take on Mr. Giles’ case in 2000. During the re-investigation, Mr. Giles’ legal team learned that Mr. Bryant had informed law enforcement of the identities of the two other attackers, but that his statement had not been shared with Mr. Giles’ defense lawyer. The two men he had named were Michael Brown and James Earl Giles.

In 2003, DNA testing revealed the profiles of two male perpetrators and excluded Mr. Giles. One of these profiles was identified as Mr. Bryant. In 2005 and 2006, additional DNA testing identified the second DNA profile as that of Michael Brown. By that time, Mr. Brown and James Earl Giles were dead. 

As part of the re-investigation, Mr. Brown’s sister signed an affidavit stating that Mr. Brown and James Earl Giles had been good friends in the early 1980s. She confirmed that James Earl Giles had lived across the street from the couple at the time of the crime. 

On Feb. 22, 2007, Innocence Project attorney Vanessa Potkin and the Dallas County District Attorney’s office jointly requested that Mr. Giles’ conviction be vacated, submitting a state law writ of habeas corpus.

Following a hearing on April 9, 2007, Dallas County Criminal District Judge Robert Francis agreed and recommended that the conviction be vacated. On June 20, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Texas granted the writ and vacated Mr. Giles’s conviction. The case was then dismissed.

Mr. Giles was subsequently awarded $1,164,000 in state compensation plus a monthly annuity of $6,300.