Networked Knowledge - Media Report

[This edited version of the report has been prepared by Dr Robert N Moles]

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On 12 July 2008 Ralph Riegel of the Irish Independent reported “No ill feelings after 26 years, says wrongly convicted man" [Walter Swift].  

He said an Irish solicitor who helped exonerate an American man who spent 26 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of rape said she is delighted that he has received such a warm reception in Ireland. Cork-born solicitor Niamh Gunn tenaciously re-examined the case of Walter Swift (47) to the point where even one of the arresting officers acknowledged that her client had been "railroaded into prison". Yesterday Ms Gunn, Mr Swift and his family visited Cork - and even got a reception with the Lord Mayor in City Hall. Mr Swift was convicted in November 1982 of the rape of a 35-year-old Detroit schoolteacher. Following an investigation in which a picture of Mr Swift was one of eight picked by the victim, he was identified as the assailant in a police line-up, although his then-girlfriend claimed he had been with her on the morning of the crime.

Ms Gunn first encountered Mr Swift when she went to New York for a three-month placement with the Innocence Project, a non-profit legal clinic dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and reform of the US criminal justice system. As a law student in Dublin in 2003, Ms Gunn had beaten stiff competition to be selected to work with the project. She tracked down the arresting officer in the case, who said: "Walter was rail-roaded into prison."  Ms Gunn persuaded prosecutors in Detroit to dismiss the rape charges against Mr Swift, based on a faulty identification by the victim and biological tests that showed Mr Swift was, in all likelihood, not her attacker. Mr Swift was released in May.

Speaking in Cork yesterday, Ms Gunn said she was delighted that Walter was receiving such a warm reception in her hometown. "Walter is coping very well. He is very excited to be in Ireland. We are hoping to go sightseeing in Kenmare and the weather is good, which is lovely," she said. Mr Swift said: "My incarceration of 26 years was my personal adversity. To harbour any ill feelings toward anyone because of it would not only cheapen me as an individual, but it would put a remarkable blemish upon the excellent work and the struggle of these people who laboured so hard on my behalf."

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