Hawaii Man Cleared After Two Decades

Alvin F. Jardine III, who spent two decades in Hawaii prisons for a sexual assault he has always said he didn’t commit, was finally cleared when prosecutors dropped charges on July 21.

Jardine was convicted in 1992 after two previous trials ended in hung juries. His convictions were tossed this year after DNA tests revealed that biological evidence from the crime scene came from an unknown man – and not

Jardine. Prosecutors dispute the DNA results but say they dropped charges to spare the victim from going through a fourth trial in the case.

“He spent the best years of his life in prison,” Jardine’s attorney Brook Hart said, noting that Jardine’s daughter was 4 months old when he was incarcerated. “He lost the opportunity to be an effective father with her until this past January when he got out on bail.

“Mr. Jardine was completely innocent of this offense.”

The Hawaii Innocence Project, a member of the

Innocence Network

, was established in 2005 and Jardine’s case one of the first it accepted.

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