Tyrone Day

The Crime

At about 2 a.m. on Oct. 25, 1989, Dallas police responded to a report that an 18-year-old woman had been sexually assaulted. The woman, A.C., was unable to speak or hear. Her written account of the attack said that she and a friend were walking in the Fair Park neighborhood when a Black man approached. The man offered her marijuana, and when she refused, he forced her into a nearby apartment where the man and two other men sexually assaulted her.

The Investigation

While A.C. was making her report, 19-year-old Tyrone Day happened to walk by. A.C. pointed to Mr. Day and indicated he was one of her attackers. Police arrested Mr. Day.

A.C. was taken to Parkland Hospital where a sexual assault kit was prepared and her clothing was collected.

The Conviction

Mr. Day asserted his innocence, but on Feb. 2, 1990, he pleaded guilty in Dallas County Criminal District Court. Mr. Day agreed to plead guilty after his defense attorney said he would likely be released on parole after four years in prison. The lawyer also had warned Mr. Day that if he was convicted at trial, he could face life in prison. At the time, Mr. Day was experiencing significant health issues and had two young daughters, so he agreed to enter a guilty plea. 

Instead of four years, Mr. Day was sentenced to 40 years.

The Exoneration

Mr. Day repeatedly sought to prove his innocence and sought legal help. In 2000, he wrote to the Innocence Project. In 2001 and again in 2005, his petitions seeking DNA testing were denied after the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office, as was the practice of the office at that time, opposed the petitions.

In 2008, after Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins created a Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU), Innocence Project Attorney Vanessa Potkin and the CIU agreed to submit the sexual assault kit and A.C.’s clothing for DNA testing. 

The testing took years. Ultimately, the DNA profiles of two unknown men as well as the low-level profile of a third male were identified. 

Mr. Day was excluded as the source of all three of the profiles. 

One profile was suitable to upload into the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), which contained nearly 20 million DNA profiles. The database search pointed to the DNA profile of a man (R.W.), who, when interviewed, admitted that he had promised to give A.C. marijuana in exchange for sex and that, after they had sex, he refused to give A.C. anything.

R.W. also told the CIU that another man, C.D., also had sex with A.C. The CIU obtained a DNA sample from C.D., and it turned out to be consistent with one of the other two unidentified DNA profiles.

Mr. Day was released on parole on Jan. 6, 2015 — more than 26 years after he was arrested. 

Beginning in 2018, the CIU conducted three interviews with A.C. with the assistance of a certified American Sign Language interpreter. A.C. gave varying accounts of what happened, but ultimately, in 2019, she admitted that at the time, she was exchanging sex for drugs. On the night she accused Mr. Day, she had provided sex but did not get the drugs, and so she felt she was the victim of a sexual assault. 

A.C. said that when she identified Mr. Day, he was on an upstairs breezeway of an apartment complex, and she was about 50 feet away in a police car. She said she did not identify Mr. Day by his face, but based only on the hat he was wearing. 

On March 10, 2023, Dallas County Criminal District Judge Carter Thompson agreed to joint findings of fact in a petition for a writ of habeas corpus presented by CIU chief Cynthia Garza, as well as Mr. Day’s attorneys, including Ms. Potkin, Gary Udashen of the Innocence Project of Texas, and Jenae Ward and Paul Genender, of the law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges. The judge, in recommending that the findings be adopted by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, said that Mr. Day was prosecuted “based on false and inaccurate evidence.”

On April 26, 2023, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted the writ and vacated Mr. Day’s conviction. On May 24, 2023, the charge was dismissed. 

While in prison, Mr. Day had studied horticulture at Trinity Valley Community College. After his release, Mr. Day co-founded Restorative Farms, an urban farming system in Dallas. After the charge was dismissed, he thanked the CIU and the Innocence Project.

“It has been a long, hard journey for my family and me, but I never lost faith that my innocence would be proven,” Mr. Day said. “Today I am focused on my family and my passion for sustainable farming. I was born and raised in South Dallas and the opportunity to bring fresh produce here, where it’s scarce, and train the next generation of farmers is so meaningful to me.”