Eyewitness testimony from two rape victims put Arthur Lee Whitfield behind bars for 22 years.  Whitfield was convicted of two rapes that occurred within 45 minutes of each other in the same neighborhood in Norfolk, Virginia.  Whitfield did not match the physical description that the victims gave to police, nor was any physical evidence found linking him to the crimes.  He had a strong alibi. Despite all this, Whitfield’s innocence was not recognized until 20 years after the crimes, when DNA testing proved that he was not the real rapist.

On August 14, 1981, upon arriving home from work at 2:40 a.m., a woman was attacked outside her home.  The attacker, whom she described as a black man with light eyes and no facial hair, threatened her with a knife and made her go with him to a more secluded area.  He took her money and then raped and sodomized her at knifepoint before fleeing.  Less than an hour later, a second woman was attacked in the same way in the same neighborhood.  The second woman provided police with a similar description of her attacker.  It was believed that they were attacked by the same man.

Whitfield became a suspect in the rapes after he was arrested in connection with a burglary that occurred the same night a few miles away.  The burglar, like the rapist, had carried a knife.  Despite the fact that he had a mustache and one of the victims had been certain that her attacker did not have facial hair, police showed his photograph to one of the rape victims.  Based solely upon the photo, the victim told police that she was 95 percent certain that he was her rapist.  After this initial identification, police arranged a lineup for both victims.  The two women, who had known each other prior to the rapes, drove to the lineup together and spent the car ride discussing what they thought the attacker had looked like.  Despite the fact that both women had described the attacker as having light eyes, the lineup consisted of five men with dark eyes and only one man with light eyes: Arthur Lee Whitfield.  During the lineups, both women identified Whitfield.

Whitfield stood trial for the first rape in January 1982.  At trial, both victims testified, each telling the jury that she was sure Whitfield had been her attacker.  Despite the lack of physical evidence connecting Whitfield to the crime and four alibi witnesses who testified that he had been with them at a birthday party at the time of the rapes, the jury found Whitfield guilty.  He was sentenced to 45 years in prison.  After receiving such a harsh sentence for the first rape, Whitfield pled guilty to the second rape in the hopes of receiving a lighter sentence, which would allow for the possibility of parole.   He ultimately received 18 years for the second rape.

Despite pleading guilty to the second rape, Whitfield maintained his innocence of both rapes.  He appealed his conviction, but it was upheld by the Court.  He was unable to get a copy of his trial transcript without permission from the Circuit Court of the City of Norfolk, which refused to give it to him, so Whitfield was unable to file a writ of habeas corpus.  Whitfield was out of options until 2001, when Virginia passed a law creating an exception to Virginia’s 21-day rule – which had given prisoners only 21 days after the date of their conviction to bring forward new evidence of innocence – was created for cases involving DNA evidence.  Whitfield and his attorneys requested that the biological evidence from both his cases undergo DNA testing.  Fortunately for Whitfield, the evidence he needed had been preserved – not by police, whose policy was to destroy it after trial, but by the lab technician who had originally examined the evidence in Whitfield’s cases.  The lab notebook was found, and it supplied the evidence that exonerated Whitfield.

In August 2004, DNA test results revealed that Whitfield could not possibly have been the rapist in either attack.  The results inculpated another man, a convicted rapist serving time for a different rape.  As Whitfield was eligible for parole, the Commonwealth of Virginia decided that parole would be the fastest way to get him out of prison.  On August 23, 2004, Whitfield was released from prison.

On April 3, 2009, Whitfield was granted an absolute pardon by VA Gov. Timothy Kaine, clearing his name once and for and taking him off the sex offender list. On August 19, 2009, Whitfield was awarded compensation of $633,000 from the Virginia General Assembly. He is now working in Norfolk in a produce factory.