JERRY HAMILTON: DNA Implicates Another; State Withholds Evidence

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Jerry Hamilton was sentenced to death in Richmond County in 1997. Six years later a judge ordered a new trial because the State withheld evidence that points to his innocence. The new trial is pending, likely to be held in the fall of this year.

The State’s case depended entirely on the testimony of Hamilton’s nephew, Johnny Ray Knight – a man who initially confessed to committing the murder himself but later changed his story and implicated Hamilton. No forensic evidence connected Hamilton to the crime, but his nephew claimed Hamilton killed the victim after Hamilton and Knight had sex with her. At trial, the prosecutor told the jury that there was no DNA evidence that “point[ed] conclusively to the guilt of anybody in this case.” After Hamilton was sentenced to death, his new lawyers requested additional forensic testing of semen found inside the victim’s body. The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation conducted additional DNA testing and concluded that Knight, and not Hamilton, was the donor of the sperm found in the victim’s body.

Hamilton’s new lawyers also obtained files from the District Attorney’s office. In them, they found a letter from Knight to police investigators. In the letter, the nephew suggested that law enforcement officers “work a deal with me” and asked investigators to “come talk to me and maybe we can work out a deal.” The letter was not turned over to Hamilton’s trial attorneys before or during the trial, though his attorneys questioned Knight extensively on the stand about whether he had a deal for his testimony. Knight insisted he did not, saying, “There ain’t been no deal.”

Last year, a Superior Court judge granted a new trial because the State withheld the letter from Hamilton’s trial attorneys. The judge said Hamilton’s trial lawyers could have used it to impeach Knight, finding a “reasonable probability that the result of this trial may have been different” had the letter been disclosed as required by law. The credibility of the nephew was the crux of the State’s case; there was no serology evidence, hair transfer evidence, fiber transfer evidence, fingerprint evidence, DNA, other forensic evidence or other witness that directly connected Hamilton to the murder in any way, the judge concluded. Hamilton is awaiting his new trial.

Knight, who pleaded guilty to second degree murder and eight other unrelated felony charges, is scheduled for release from prison in October of this year, according to the website for the North Carolina Department of Correction.