Justice is sweet and musical;
but Injustice is harsh and discordant.
-Henry David Thoreau
Dion Harrell died on January 15, 2021. He was fifty-three.
In 1992, Dion Harrell was convicted of rape. His alleged victim was a seventeen-year-old girl. On the night of September 18, 1988, leaving her job at the McDonald's in Long Branch, the girl had been raped by a man who grabbed her, dragged her into a dark parking lot off Broaday, raped her, and then stole her purse.
At the time, Mr. Harrell was twenty-two years old. The victim told police she did not know who had assaulted her. However, several days after the attack, she saw Harrell in the area, recognized him from having been in the McDonald's, and informed the authorities that he was, in fact, the man who had raped her.
DNA evidence was not then what it is now and in 1992, using what is known as "blood typing", the prosecution presented the jury with the victim's identification of Mr. Harrell and the fact that his blood type placed him within the (large) pool of the population that could have committed the crime. He was convicted and sentenced to eight years in state prison. He served four years prior to being released.
However, Mr. Harrell's release from prison did not vitiate his obligation to register as a sex offender. Secure in the knowledge that he had been convicted of a crime he did not commit, Mr. Harrell never stopped fighting to clear his name. Ultimately, after convincing the New York-based Innocence Project to take up his fight, he prevailed. In 2016, improvements and advances in DNA testing proved conclusively that what Mr. Harrell had shouted to the heavens since 1988 was true - he was not the person who raped that poor girl.
Even after he was exonerated, justice eluded Mr. Harrell. The State of New Jersey fought hard against his claim for compensation related to his wrongful conviction and incarceration, which fight the State won in our state courts. Finally, in July 2020, the State and Mr. Harrell reached a settlement. Under New Jersey's Mistaken Imprisonment Act, Mr. Harrell was entitled to receive $50,000 a year for each year he was incarcerated.
According to the story in the Star-Ledger, he had only received one payment at the time of his death.
-AK
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