RALEIGH, North Carolina (AP) -- Gov. Mike Easley has refused to pardon a man he sent to prison when he was a prosecutor even though the man was freed after the victims recanted their testimony.
Easley denied the petition of Sylvester Smith, 54, who was convicted in 1984 for first degree rape and two counts of first degree sexual offense, the governor's office said Wednesday.
At the same time, however, the governor pardoned Leo Waters, 56, of New Bern, who served 21 years in prison for a 1981 rape and was freed based on new DNA evidence.
A pardon in North Carolina allows a wrongfully convicted person to seek $20,000 a year from the state for each year the person was imprisoned, up to $500,000.
Smith said Easley had a conflict of interest because he prosecuted the case when he was district attorney in Brunswick County. "I don't think he's man enough to say he made a mistake," Smith said.
A judge ordered Smith released from prison in November. The accusers, who were 5 and 6 at the time of the trial, recanted their earlier testimony and said their grandmother told them to say Smith was responsible for the abuse rather than their 9-year-old cousin. The cousin, who can't be prosecuted because of his age at the time of the crime, is serving a life prison sentence for murder. The grandmother has died.
Smith won a new trial and a prosecutor dismissed the charges.
The governor issued a statement saying his decision was based on a review of the 1984 trial transcript and a recently completed inquiry by the State Bureau of Investigation.
There is no appeal of Easley's decision. Smith's attorney, Roy Trest, said he would file a new petition with the next governor in 2009.
In the other case, Waters was cleared of his rape conviction after a DNA test conducted in 2003. District Attorney Dewey Hudson dismissed charges against Waters more than year ago and a grand jury indicted a Massachusetts prison inmate in the case Tuesday.
Waters had been convicted in a March 31, 1981, attack on a Jacksonville woman.
DNA taken from the victim and the crime scene was compared to samples in a national registry and matched that of Joel Bill Caulk, 58, serving time in Massachusetts for rape and robbery, Jacksonville Police Detective Len Condry said.
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