Neil Miller

The Crime

On Aug. 24, 1989, a Black man brandishing a screwdriver forced his way into a 19-year-old woman’s apartment in Boston, Massachusetts. The man robbed her, then sexually assaulted her. He then fled.

She called the police and was taken to a hospital where a rape kit was taken.

The Investigation

The following day, the victim went to the police station where she viewed about 700 photographs of Black men. She was unable to identify anyone as her attacker.

On Sept. 18, 1989, the victim worked with a police artist to create a composite sketch of her attacker. Not long after, police officers suggested that the sketch resembled 22-year-old Neil Miller. 

Four days later, the victim was shown a photograph lineup of 15 men, including Mr. Miller. She eventually narrowed her choices down to two photographs, one of which featured Mr. Miller at age 16. Ultimately, she identified this photo as that of her assailant.

On Nov. 15, 1989, police arrested Mr. Miller. They took a photograph of him and created another photographic lineup. The victim again selected Mr. Miller as her attacker, although he looked quite different as a 22-year-old than he did as a 16-year-old.

Mr. Miller was charged with aggravated rape while armed and breaking and entering.

The Trial

A probable cause hearing was set for Feb. 27, 1990, in Suffolk County Superior Court. At the first call of the case, Mr. Miller’s lawyer requested that his client be kept out of the courtroom. Because the perpetrator’s identity was a critical issue, this would allow a fair, non-suggestive identification procedure to be arranged for a later date.

However, before the second call, Prosecutor Charles Daly and Boston Police Officer Joseph Pishkin learned that Mr. Miller was waiting in the hallway outside the courtroom. They retrieved the victim from the upstairs district attorney’s office and instructed her to identify the man who raped her if she saw him.

When they reached the courtroom, they saw two men standing outside. The victim told Officer Pishkin that she thought that one of those two men — Mr. Miller — was her attacker. At that point, Mr. Miller walked into the courtroom and sat down. The victim followed him into the courtroom and identified him to Officer Pishkin as her rapist.

Later, during the hearing where Mr. Miller sought to suppress these hallway interactions, the prosecution conceded that the identifications were improper. Those identifications were barred from Mr. Miller’s trial, which began in December 1990. 

At trial, the victim once again identified him as her attacker. 

A forensic analyst from the Boston Police Crime Laboratory testified that testing on semen collected at the crime scene revealed two different blood group markers. Although one matched Mr. Miller’s blood type, it also matched the victim’s, so the test could not confirm or eliminate him as a suspect. Other testing of bedding excluded both Mr. Miller and the victim, but the prosecution speculated biological material could have been left there previously in an unrelated incident.

Miller did not testify at the trial.

On Dec. 19, 1990, the jury convicted Mr. Miller of aggravated rape while armed and breaking and entering with intent to commit a felony. He was sentenced to 26 to 45 years in prison.

The Exoneration

Mr. Miller’s appeals were unsuccessful. He reached out for help from The Innocence Project and in 1998, the Innocence Project agreed to reinvestigate his case.

The vaginal swabs and slides from the evidence were located and sent to Forensic Science Associates (FSA), a California DNA testing laboratory. 

In April 2000, FSA’s test results excluded Miller as the source of the spermatozoa. On May 20, 2000, Miller’s convictions were vacated, the charges were dismissed, and he was released after nearly a decade after his conviction.

In 2003, Miller filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Boston. He was subsequently awarded $500,000 in compensation from the state of Massachusetts.

In 2004, based on DNA testing, 49-year-old Lawrence Taylor was charged with three rapes committed in 1989 in Boston, including the rape that Miller had been wrongly convicted of committing. 

In 2008, Miller settled his federal lawsuit with the city of Boston for $3.2 million.