Powell freed from prison; DNA evidence clears him

In an emotionless hearing that contrasted sharply with the joy that followed, Anthony Powell's 1992 conviction on multiple rape charges was wiped out yesterday by Suffolk County prosecutors and a Superior Court judge, who immediately allowed the 37-year-old Powell to leave in the embrace of his family.

Powell, who arrived from state prison in a red Department of Correction jumpsuit, had changed into dress clothes and was mobbed by his mother, sister, brother, relatives, and friends as they steered him past a gaggle of reporters into a giant white limousine parked outside Suffolk Superior Court in Post Office Square.

Powell did not speak to reporters, but as the door closed on the Ford Expedition a loud shout of joy could be heard as Powell and his family celebrated the vindication Powell had obsessively pursued since he was arrested by Boston police on March 20, 1991, at a Roxbury skating rink and charged with the savage rape of a Dorchester woman the day before.

"It's all he talked about, to the point where it became painful," said Powell's older sister, Shawna R. Kelley of Dorchester. "His mind was just stuck on that day."

Powell became the eighth wrongly convicted man prosecuted in Suffolk County to be released from a Massachusetts prison since 1997, and the speed with which his release finally happened seemed to stun his mother, Cheryl E. Simmons, a Suffolk Superior Court probation employee.

In just five minutes, defense attorney Stephen Hrones asked for a new trial, prosecutor Joshua Wall said DNA evidence showed Powell was entitled to it, and then Superior Court Judge Robert Mulligan, who presided at Powell's 1992 trial, overturned Powell's conviction and terminated his 12- to 20-year prison sentence. Wall then closed the door on the case by saying that evidence "strongly supports the conclusion that Mr. Powell did not commit rape in 1991."

Powell's family had long ago reached the same conclusion, and yesterday his oldest brother, James, a Boston police officer, brought the dress clothes for his brother to wear home. James Powell told reporters that detectives who first investigated the rape should have been more vigorous in searching for the man who kidnapped the victim at knifepoint shortly after midnight while she waited for an MBTA bus at the intersections of Marcella and Washington streets in Dorchester.

"There should have been more investigation," James Powell said, adding that he was once deeply angered by the wrong done to his brother but has since come to realize that "sometimes you just have to let [anger] go."

"He was in the wrong place at the wrong time," he said.

According to court records, the victim told police the rapist had ordered her to show up with $100 at a skating rink, the same rink where Anthony Powell was when he was arrested.

While Powell always maintained his innocence, it wasn't until the Committee for Public Counsel Services appointed an Easton attorney, Julie Boyden, to review his case that he had a real chance to prove his claim. Boyden, along with Hrones, asked that DNA testing be done on biological evidence still held by police. That testing excluding Anthony Powell as the donor of the semen found in the rape victim. Last week, test results also excluded the woman's former boyfriend, with whom she reported having sex in the hours before the rape. Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said the genetic profile was submitted yesterday to the national and state DNA databases in hope of identifying the woman's attacker. He also publicly apologized to Anthony Powell and his family for the years he spent locked up. "On behalf of the entire criminal justice system, I extend a sincere and heartfelt apology to Mr. Powell and to all the families involved," Conley said.

Conley also announced that his office today will formally drop murder charges against William Leyden, who had been charged with murdering his brother, John, in East Boston until another man confessed to the crime. William Leyden was charged based on forensic evidence and witness statements. Conley also apologized to Leyden and his family.

Boston Police Commissioner Kathleen O'Toole said at the same press conference that her review of the Powell case leads to the conclusion that a mistake was made, but not that the investigating detectives "did anything to frame Anthony Powell."

"I think they acted in good faith," she said. "But obviously the wrong man was convicted. That's a tragedy."

Conley and O'Toole announced that they have set up an interagency task force to scrutinize the identification procedures used by police and prosecutors, such as the photo array used in Powell's case, and the victim's eyewitness identification of Powell as her attacker. Conley said the task force report is due within a month. But he said he was not yet certain whether he would apply any lessons learned to old cases or simply use them in future investigations.

According to his family, Anthony Powell was released on the same day as a bittersweet anniversary: Yesterday would have been the 90th birthday of his grandmother, Doris Jones, who was killed in a fire in her family's Elmore Street home last October.

"She was waiting for him to come home," said Powell's mother, Cheryl, who then pointed skyward and said, "She was pushing for his release up there."