Steven Toney

The Crime

At approximately 3:00 a.m. on Sept. 30, 1982, a 21-year-old woman, identified as K.M., was coming home to her walk-up apartment building when she noticed and greeted an unfamiliar black man at the building entrance. 

She walked upstairs and as she placed her key in the door lock, the man grabbed her from behind, threatened her with a knife, and forced her outside to a nearby wooded area. The man then raped her before running off. Afterwards, K.M. returned to her apartment where her fiancé was sleeping, woke him, and bathed while he called the police. The woman was taken to a hospital and a rape kit was taken.

She described her attacker as 20 to 25 years old, between 5 feet 8 inches and 5 feet 10 inches, tall, stocky, and dark-complexioned, with bad teeth. 

The Investigation

On Oct. 5, 1982, K.M. went to the police station where she viewed 65 photographs of Black men without making any identification of her assailant. Three days later, St. Louis County Police Detective Karen Lasater came by K.M.’s apartment to show her four more photographs. K.M. selected the photograph of 35-year-old Steven Toney. The photograph had been taken three years earlier and was the only one of the four that had information from the Missouri Department of Corrections, which referenced a prior conviction for robbery.

A little later, K.M. viewed a live lineup. The police told her that the man whose photograph she had identified was in the lineup. She selected Mr. Toney again. 

On Oct. 11, 1982, Mr. Toney was arrested. He was charged with forcible rape and forcible sodomy.

On Oct. 14, the police also showed a photographic lineup including Mr. Toney’s picture to Lee Adams, an 18-year-old attendant at a gas station near K.M.’s apartment. Mr. Adams identified Mr. Toney as the man who approached the station at about 3:30 a.m on the night of the crime.

The Trial

Mr. Toney went to trial in St. Louis County Circuit Court in April 1983 after he rejected the advice of his defense attorney, Stormy White, to plead guilty. Ms. White also rejected Mr. Toney’s urge to investigate Arnett Smith, who had been the initial suspect in the crime and had prior convictions for indecent exposure.

On the stand, K.M. and Mr. Adams both identified Mr. Toney. The defense pointed out that Mr. Toney did not resemble the description given by K.M. Mr. Toney was 6 feet tall, with a medium complexion. He was 35 years old, had a slender build, a mustache and a beard, pock marks, and good teeth.

Barbara Beard, a forensic chemist at the St. Louis County Police Crime Laboratory, testified that a Negroid hair was found in the rape kit, but it was never examined or tested. Ms. Beard also testified that semen was identified in the rape kit, but no further tests had been performed. 

The trial judge granted a prosecution motion to prohibit the defense from introducing into evidence a copy of a composite sketch that K.M. had helped police create, as well as a photograph of Arnett Smith, which more closely resembled the sketch than Mr. Toney did.

Mr. Toney’s grandmother, Mamie, testified that at the time of the crime, Mr. Toney was asleep in bed at her home.

On April 8, 1983, the jury convicted Mr. Toney of forcible rape and forcible sodomy. Judge James Ruddy sentenced him to two consecutive sentences of life in prison.

In 1985, Mr. Toney, acting without a lawyer, filed a motion to vacate his convictions. He alleged multiple constitutional violations, including ineffective assistance of counsel, violation of due process, inappropriate sentencing, exclusion of potentially exculpatory evidence, and inappropriate standard of evidence. Mr. Toney argued that he repeatedly asked his trial defense lawyer for DNA testing before trial and that she refused. 

He was unsuccessful.

The Exoneration

In 1995, Mr. Toney filed a federal petition for a writ of habeas corpus. It was denied in the U.S. District Court.

In 1995, Rebecca Stith, a volunteer attorney for the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of appeals, was assigned to handle an appeal of the denial of Mr. Toney’s petition. She was the 13th attorney to work on Mr. Toney’s case.

She argued the appeal and in March 1996, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit sided with Mr. Toney, saying he raised “substantial claims that his counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to pursue the issue of mistaken identification and to obtain blood tests.” 

Later that year, Cellmark Diagnostics, a New-Jersey based nonprofit organization, paid for DNA testing of the case evidence. The testing was performed by Cellmark Laboratories in Germantown, Maryland. In July 1996, the test results excluded Mr. Toney.

On July 17, 1996, the prosecution and the defense filed a motion to vacate Mr. Toney’s convictions. The motion was granted, and so the case was dismissed, and Mr. Toney was released. He had more served than 13 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.

Mr. Toney later filed a civil rights lawsuit, but it was dismissed. He subsequently was awarded $242,450 in state compensation.