On July 8, 1992, a woman was raped in her Sunflower County, Mississippi, home after an intruder unscrewed her porch light, climbed through her bathroom window, and threatened her with a gun. The man hit her on the head with the gun and raped her. Minutes after the attack, the victim reported to her neighbor that “a man” had raped her. The neighbor called the police. The victim reported that the rapist may have been Boo Rabbit, a nickname she used for Arthur Johnson. During her sexual assault examination at the hospital, the victim reported that she wasn’t sure who attacked her, but it may have been Boo Rabbit. Later that night, police went to Mr. Johnson’s house and placed him in a police car. The victim viewed Mr. Johnson in a show-up procedure and identified him as the rapist.
Testing of the rape kit samples failed to inculpate Mr. Johnson and the results were not used at trial. Another woman who’d been attacked on the same night was called to testify. The second victim never spoke to police about the attempted rape, only wrote a statement and delivered it to the Ruleville Police. This victim did not identify Mr. Johnson, also known to her as Boo Rabbit, until she spoke to her mother about the crime. The attempted rape case was not investigated by police or prosecuted by the state, but that victim’s testimony was allowed at Mr. Johnson’s trial. Though several people testified that Mr. Johnson was at home on the night of the crime, a jury convicted him of aggravated rape and burglary in October 1993. He was sentenced to 55 years in prison.
Innocence & Justice Louisiana began investigating Mr. Johnson’s case in 2005, resulting in post-conviction DNA testing that excluded him as the donor of male DNA on the victim’s underwear and shorts. His conviction was vacated in February 2008, but the state planned to re-try him. Innocence & Justice Louisiana insisted that the DNA profile be entered into state and federal DNA databases. In September 2008, the profile was linked to a man who’d pleaded guilty to several sexual crimes that happened less than two weeks after the rape that Mr. Johnson was convicted of. This man had been released in 2002 and went on to commit another sexual assault.
The charges against Mr. Johnson were dropped in September 2008. He was incarcerated for over 15 years for a rape he didn’t commit.
