DNA sets free D.C. man imprisoned in 1981 student slaying

[douglas9]

By Keith L. Alexander
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 16, 2009; B01


A District man who was incarcerated for 28 years in the rape and murder of a Georgetown University student in Rock Creek Park was ordered released Tuesday by a D.C. Superior Court judge after DNA evidence revealed that another man committed the crime.

Donald Eugene Gates, now 58, had maintained his innocence from the start. He was to board a bus from a prison in Arizona on Tuesday afternoon and head to a new home -- and a new life -- in his home town of Akron, Ohio.

Although the judge's ruling frees Gates, it does not exonerate him. There will be a separate hearing to make that determination after more DNA testing is completed.

"This is very exciting and beautiful," Gates said as he tried to figure out how to operate the cellphone belonging to his Arizona-based attorney. Gates said he was trying to "process everything" now that he had been released from a life sentence.

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Draper said the government would provide Gates with winter clothes, $75 and a bus ticket to Ohio, where he has family. Gates's adviser, University of Arizona law professor Andy Silverman, who met him at the bus terminal, said Gates had to pay $35 for a cab ride from the prison to the Greyhound station.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/15/AR2009121502360_pf.html

[Subdivisions]

1. $75 and a bus ticket? For 28 years of false imprisonment? Sounds just like DC. n/t