Freed man says he relied on mother, God while behind bars
Martha Waggoner, Associated Press
Updated 5:16 pm CDT, Thursday, August 22, 2019
Photo: Deborah Griffin, AP
Dontae Sharpe enters a Pitt County courtroom to the cheers of his family after a judge determined he could be set free on a $100,000 unsecured bond on Thursday, Aug. 22, 2019 in Greenville, N.C. Sharpe, a North Carolina man who maintained his innocence even as he served a life sentence for a murder he didn’t commit said Thursday that he got his strength in prison from God and his mother. (Deborah Griffin/The Daily Reflector via AP)
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A North Carolina man who maintained his innocence even as he served a life sentence for a murder he didn't commit was freed Thursday and said he got his strength in prison from God and his mother.
Dontae Sharpe went free after an evidentiary hearing in Pitt County court in Greenville, where a judge ordered a new trial. Prosecutors then said they wouldn't seek a retrial, and the 44-year-old Sharpe was released within about an hour, said his attorney, Theresa Newman.
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The Rev. William Barber, who was president of the state chapter of the NAACP when the organization took up Sharpe's case, said racism and poverty contributed to Sharpe's conviction despite the lack of physical evidence.
"It was the racism within the system that said basically, any black man will do," said Barber, who's now co-director of the president of Repairers of the Breach and co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign. And Sharpe's family couldn't afford the "powerhouse attorney" needed to fight the charge, he said.
More:
https://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Attorneys-to-argue-new-evidence-in-NC-innocence-14369700.php#photo-18145972