Sedrick Courtney

The Crime

At about noon on April 6, 1995, two men with pistols and ski masks kicked in the door to the apartment of 23-year-old Shemita Greer in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The men forced Ms. Greer to the floor and duct-taped her eyes and mouth.

During the robbery, which lasted less than 10 minutes, the men kicked Ms. Greer in the head and she played dead. They left with $397 in cash from her purse, four tires, and four wheel rims.

The Investigation

After the robbers left, Ms. Greer called the police. She identified the man in the black ski mask as 23-year-old Sedrick Courtney, whom she had known for about three years and with whom she had socialized in the past. She said that, before her eyes were covered, Mr. Courtney had lifted his ski mask up high enough so that she recognized him. She also recognized the man’s skin tone and voice as Mr. Courtney’s. The other man, who Ms. Greer did not identify, was wearing a green mask.

The ski masks were found outside the apartment.

Mr. Courtney was arrested on June 12, 1995, and charged with robbery and burglary. The other robber was never identified or prosecuted.

The Trial

In February 1996, Mr. Courtney went to trial in Tulsa County District Court. Ms. Greer identified Mr. Courtney as her assailant, saying she was “positive” of her identification.

Several hairs recovered from the ski masks were sent to the Tulsa Police Department crime laboratory for analysis. Seven of the hairs had roots and were sent for DNA testing, but the results were inconclusive.

A crime laboratory analyst testified that Mr. Courtney’s hair samples were too short to compare to those in the black ski mask. However, a bleached red hair found in the green ski mask was microscopically consistent with a bleached red hair recovered from Mr. Courtney.

Faced with this inconsistency — that the hair said to be consistent with Mr. Courtney’s hair came from the green mask while Mr. Greer said Mr. Courtney was wearing the black mask — the prosecution argued that Mr. Courtney could have owned both masks and worn them prior to the robbery. 

Mr. Courtney presented three relatives who testified that he had borrowed a car to attend a class at an unemployment center at the time of the robbery.

On Feb. 8, 1996, the jury convicted Mr. Courtney of armed robbery and burglary. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

The Exoneration

In 2000, after losing his appeals, Mr. Courtney sought more advanced DNA testing on the hairs, but the Tulsa Police Department stated that the hairs had been destroyed.

Mr. Courtney contacted the Innocence Project for help. In 2007, an Innocence Project lawyer sent a letter to the Tulsa Police requesting a search for the hairs, the masks, and the duct tape that was recovered at the crime scene.

In 2008, the police department again reported that the evidence had been destroyed. Mr. Courtney was released on parole in June 2011 after serving more than 16 years in prison.

In September 2011, on a whim, a law student working on the case for the Innocence Project phoned the Tulsa police department to ask once more about the evidence. This time, the department reported that it still had the hair slides from the black and green masks.

Mitochondrial DNA testing failed to link Mr. Courtney to either the black or green mask. Testing on the 10 hairs from the black mask excluded Mr. Courtney and concluded that nine of the hairs came from the same person. Testing on the five hairs from the green mask also excluded Mr. Courtney and concluded that four of them came from the same person. 

On March 12, 2012, a state habeas petition challenging Mr. Courtney’s unlawful detention was filed in Tulsa County District Court. On July 19, 2012, Mr. Courtney’s conviction was vacated and the charges were dismissed. 

In July 2013, Mr. Courtney was granted a certificate of actual innocence. He was subsequently awarded $175,000 in state compensation. In June 2014, he filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Tulsa. The lawsuit was settled in October 2015 for $8 million.