Texas exoneree says Governor’s pardon is the key to a new life

Ronnie Taylor was released from Texas prison eight months ago after serving 12 years for a rape he didn’t commit. This week, he received a pardon from Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and he said this step will finally let him get started with his life.

"It's been hard to get restarted," Taylor said in a telephone interview from Atlanta. "Little things, like filling out a job application or renting an apartment are hard when you have to say you are a convicted felon. Now, I am officially a free man. I am so relieved."

Read the full story here

. (Houston Chronicle, 06/20/08)

Taylor was convicted of a 1993 rape in Houston after an analyst from the Houston Police Department Crime Lab incorrectly told jurors that no semen was discovered on the victim’s bedsheet, despite a large damp spot identified by police immediately after the crime. After the Innocence Project accepted his case, lab analysis showed that there indeed was semen from the perpetrator at that spot. DNA testing not only cleared Taylor, but led to the identity of the real perpetrator, who was briefly a suspect at the time of Taylor’s arrest.

Watch Ronnie Taylor tell his story in his own words in an Innocence Project video on Texas exonerations

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