DNA tests bring freedom after 18 years behind bars

ST. LOUIS -- Cleared by DNA tests after nearly 18 years behind bars for a rape he didn't commit, Larry Johnson walked out of prison Tuesday and returned home peacefully focused on his life that's left, not the time he lost.

Hours after a judge ordered Johnson freed from a maximum-security prison north of Kansas City, Johnson flew to Lambert Airport and into the tearful clutches of his family, a crush of reporters and television cameras jockeying to capture it all.

"This is all I need, and this is all I wanted," Johnson, 48, said while getting a hug from his mother, Juanita McClure.

"I'll never let him go," she replied, tears streaking down her cheek.

Johnson said he had no immediate plans, aside from reuniting with loved ones, mapping out his job prospects as an "entrepreneur" and digesting "whatever wisdom comes from this." He said he harbored no bitterness toward police, prosecutors or the 20-year-old female college student who wrongly accused him of raping her in 1984.

'Human errors'

"Human errors happen every day," he said, smiling.

What mattered, he insisted, was liberty and the fact he never lost hope.

"When you've been through hell so many times, you've got nothing but peace left," said Johnson, wearing tan pants, with some eyeglasses and a pack of Kool cigarettes tucked in the pocket of his blue shirt. All Johnson had to carry out of prison: just a red folder bulging with legal papers.

"To me, I'm still looking at life," he said. "And I've got a lot of life left."

Johnson's freedom from the state's Crossroads Correctional Center came just days after a prosecutor revealed his exoneration by DNA tests on evidence long believed to have been destroyed.

So on Tuesday, St. Louis Circuit Judge Timothy Wilson ordered Johnson freed, ruling that "it is clear that Larry Johnson's actual innocence of the crimes for which he was convicted is a certainty beyond any and all doubt."

In announcing the DNA results late last week, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce said Johnson "has been horribly wronged" by being convicted and sentenced in 1984 to life plus 30 years for rape, sodomy, kidnapping and robbery.

Justice after 18 years

"I'm very happy that we finally have justice," Joyce said Tuesday. "I terribly regret it taking 18 years."

Attorneys for Johnson said they are exploring whether to sue over Johnson's wrongful arrest and confinement.

"We'll take a very hard look at it; we can't afford not to," said Chet Pleban, a St. Louis attorney for Johnson.

Johnson, of St. Louis, was sentenced in September 1984 on charges that he kidnapped, raped, sodomized and robbed a female St. Louis University student in her car eight months earlier.