Edward Honaker -- Virginia, 1985

True Stories of Injustice...

Edward Honaker -- Virginia, 1985

On October 21, 1994 Edward Honaker walked out of prison after serving ten years of his three life sentences as a free and innocent man. Virginia Governor George Allen pardoned Honaker for a rape he did not commit. Honaker was convicted in 1985 of seven different charges arising from an incident involving a gunpoint abduction of a Virginia woman who was subsequently raped and sodomized. He was sentenced to three life sentences plus 34 years. This conviction rests almost exclusively upon the eyewitness identification of the victim, Angela Nichols, and her boyfriend at the time, Samuel Dempsey, who was present when she was kidnapped.

Nichols says she was abducted at gunpoint while she and Dempsey were sleeping in their car in the Virginia wilderness. For the next four hours, according to Nichols, she was repeatedly raped and sodomized in and around her attacker’s truck. She testified her attacker ejaculated into her mouth and vagina (sperm was found in the swab taken from the victim’s shorts after the attack). The rapist, who appeared to be left-handed because he held the gun there, also talked at length about his Vietnam war experience.

However, the evidence showed that Honaker is right-handed; he had never been to Vietnam; and he had a vasectomy a few years before this incident, which rendered him incapable of producing sperm. In addition, Honaker has a large surgery scar on his stomach which Nichols inexplicably failed to notice. Nichols’ identification of Honaker is particularly suspect because she had initially told police that she "couldn’t see her attacker clearly throughout the entire ordeal."

After over 1300 hours of relentless investigation, CM discovered that the prosecution engaged in serious misconduct which led to this wrongful conviction. At trial, law enforcement officials suppressed the fact that six days after the assault they sent both Nichols and Dempsey for hypnosis to help enhance their recollection of the incident. The hypnotist, Dr. Robert S. Brown, confirms this. Three months after the hypnosis session Nichols and Dempsey were first shown Honaker’s photo line-up. From then on, both eye witnesses have clung to their story that he is the man. Had the defense been privy to this information, Nichols and Dempsey’s identification would not have been admissible at trial and Honaker may never have been convicted. Under Virginia law, post-hypnosis photograph and live line-up identifications are not admissible.

CM also uncovered a case incident report written by Park Ranger Gray Trayham, the first law enforcement officer who interviewed Nichols after the rape. In the report, she told Trayham that she "was not allowed to clearly see the individual [her attacker] during the entire sequence of events." This report, which was also kept from the defense at trial, would have further destroyed Nichols’ already weak identification.

CM also discovered that the prosecutor falsified and manipulated evidence. During its case in chief, the state presented evidence of a head hair fragment found on Nichols’ shorts. According to the testimony of state criminalist Elmer Gist, the hair was "consistent" with Honaker’s hair and it was "unlikely" that the hair would match anyone other than the defendant. A leading hair analyst, Dr. Peter De Forest of the John Jay School of Criminal Justice, replicated Gist’s tests at CM’s request. De Forest’s findings flatly contradict Gist’s. De Forest concluded that the hair on Nichols’ shorts does not exhibit any matches with Honaker’s hair samples.

Moreover, De Forest maintains that it was "improper and misleading" for Gist to claim that it was "unlikely" for the hair to come from any person other than Honaker, because there is no scientific basis for using hair analysis to identify an individual. The significance of Gist’s unsupported damning testimony is underscored by the fact that, at the time of sentencing, the trial judge emphasized that the hair evidence was critical to the verdict because there was "no way the jury could have gotten around it."

Last March, Ed Honaker received wonderful news: NACDL member Barry Scheck ordered previously unavailable DNA tests on semen stains found in Nichols’ shorts. These tests showed that the semen could not have come from Dempsey or Honaker. The tests thus support the conclusion that the semen came from a third person — the real rapist. Scheck and CM presented the new DNA results to Nelson County, Virginia’s head prosecutor Phillip Payne. Payne was persuaded to join in Honaker’s petition for clemency from Governor Allen.

However, in late August 1994, Honaker’s expected release was placed in jeopardy when Nichols made a stunning and incredible revelation: she suddenly remembered, for the first time in ten years, that she had consensual sexual intercourse with yet another man besides Dempsey — although she could not remember exactly when. Preliminary testing revealed that the new lover’s genetic alleles were consistent with the depositor of the sperm on the swab taken from Nichols’ shorts. Both Scheck and the state of Virginia then conducted further DNA tests, which concluded that the new lover could not be the depositor of the sperm found on the swab. Therefore, once again, Honaker’s original contention that the sperm on the swab belongs to the victim’s real rapist was proven to be true.

On the day of Honaker’s release, Governor Allen phoned him at the prison and informed him that he was receiving an unconditional pardon. Allen also apologized to Honaker on behalf of the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia and wished him God-speed. However, Allen’s statements at a recent news conference in opposition to Honaker’s anticipated claim for reparation from the state seem baffling. Allen said reparation was unwarranted because the prosecution, judge and jury "all acted in complete accordance with the law." We hope that upon further reflection the governor will realize that there is no such thing as "harmless error" for the innocent imprisoned.

National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL)
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