GRAND JUNCTIONThe sweet smell of burning sage from a smudge stick wafted around Robert Dewey outside the Mesa County District Courthouse on Monday afternoon as he performed a Native American cleansing ceremony. <\/p>\n
Behind him: nearly 18 years in a tiny prison cell and a wrongful conviction on a 1994 rape and murder. <\/p>\n
What lies ahead of him is less clear. <\/p>\n
A judge granted a joint motion to exonerate Dewey after a re-examination of DNA evidence pointed to a new suspect: Douglas Thames, who is already incarcerated for a similar crime in Fort Collins. <\/p>\n
Dewey, 51, now faces the challenge of finding work with a prison record and fixing a back problem that worsened in prison. Then, he joked, there's the <\/p>\n
\"Coming out of a shoebox into this,\" Dewey said after his court hearing, \"there's a lot for me to catch up on.\" <\/p>\n
Freeing Dewey after more than 6,000 days behind bars was a historic occasion, said District Judge Brian Flynn. <\/p>\n
\"It's really a pretty humbling day for a lot of people involved in the criminal-justice system,\" Flynn said. <\/p>\n
Dewey's post-conviction attorney, Danyel Joffe, credited Mesa County prosecutor Rich Tuttle, the attorney general's office and law enforcement for re-investigating her client's case after all these years. <\/p>\n
\"It takes real character to stand up and say we made a mistake 17 years ago,\" Joffe said as she asked for her client's exoneration in court. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Visit link: GRAND JUNCTIONThe sweet smell of burning sage from a smudge stick wafted around Robert Dewey outside the Mesa County District Courthouse on Monday afternoon as he performed a Native American cleansing ceremony. Continue reading
\nNew DNA evidence clears Dewey in 1994 Grand Junction murder<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"