Despite losing nearly three decades of his life, Tyrone Day’s innocence was frustratingly simple to prove. He just needed a DNA test.
After being released after 26 years in prison, it took nearly a decade and the combined effort of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, The Innocence Project, the Dallas District Attorney’s Office Conviction Integrity Unit, and Udashen Anton to vacate his plea.
In 1990, Tyrone Day was convicted of sexual assault and sentenced to 40 years in prison. He accepted a plea deal on the advice of his lawyer at the time, who told him he would likely serve just four years of his sentence in prison if he pleaded guilty and could face 99 years in prison if he went to trial. With unaddressed health problems and two young daughters, he accepted the plea. He was imprisoned for 26 years before being paroled and forced to register as a sex offender. He has always maintained his innocence.
“Like so many people accused of crimes, Mr. Day had no real choice. If he did not plead guilty to a crime he did not do, he would have faced a trial in a system stacked against him and risked spending the rest of his life in prison,” says Vanessa Potkin, director of special litigation for the Innocence Project.