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Judge supports clearing Texan of 1982 rape

James Giles is surrounded by family after a judge recommended his exoneration Monday in Dallas. Giles, who spent 10 years in prison after a rape conviction, is hugged by his sister Virginia Garrett. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Anabelle Garay Associated Press
James Giles is surrounded by family after a judge recommended his exoneration Monday in Dallas. Giles, who spent 10 years in prison after a rape conviction, is hugged by his sister Virginia Garrett. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)

DALLAS – A case of mistaken identity was blamed for a Texas man’s conviction in a 1982 rape, and on Monday a judge recommended he be exonerated based on new DNA evidence.

James Curtis Giles has spent nearly half of his life – including 10 years in prison and 14 years on the sex offender registry – trying to prove he was not one of three men implicated in the case.

“It’s been humiliating every day, knowing that a sex offender was the scum of the earth,” Giles said after the hearing Monday.

If the appeals court formally approves state District Judge Robert Francis’ recommendation as expected, Giles, now 53, will become the 13th Dallas County man to be exonerated since 2001 with the help of DNA evidence.

It could take a few months for the appeals court to act on the judge’s recommendation.

“I didn’t have no idea that I would be found guilty … but I knew that I wasn’t going to stop fighting,” Giles said after the hearing. About two dozen relatives packed into the courtroom and broke into applause after Giles spoke.

Then Giles, dressed in a blue suit and smiling, left the courtroom arm-in-arm with his wife, several relatives behind him. At least four other men who have been cleared through DNA in Dallas County also attended the hearing.

Both the Dallas County District Attorney’s office and Giles’ Innocence Project lawyer, Vanessa Potkin, told the court they had evidence showing Giles was innocent of the 1982 gang rape of a Dallas woman.

It turned out to be a case of mistaken identity, said Assistant Dallas County District Attorney Lisa Smith.

A man who pleaded guilty to the gang rape, Stanley Bryant, implicated two other men in the crime: a James Giles and a Michael Brown. DNA evidence linked Brown and Bryant to the crime, Smith and Potkin said. Brown was never tried and died in prison after being convicted of another gang rape.

Police eventually arrested James Curtis Giles, who lived 25 miles away and did not match the description of the attacker given by the rape victim, Potkin said. Giles was about 10 years older and had gold teeth.

Investigators ignored another man with a similar name: James Earl Giles. That Giles lived across the street from the victim and had previously been arrested with Brown on other charges, the attorneys said. He died in prison in 2000 while serving time for robbery and assault.

The victim recently acknowledged some doubt as to whether James Curtis Giles was among the rapists. One witness also recently identified the other man, James Earl Giles, in a photo lineup, Smith said.

The DNA evidence that linked Brown to the crime was one factor that helped persuade the district attorney’s office to investigate James Curtis Giles’ claim of innocence, especially because of Brown’s “overwhelming connection” to the other James Giles, Potkin said.

Giles would be the 13th Dallas County man since 2001 exonerated by DNA evidence, the most of any county in the nation. It would be the third exoneration since District Attorney Craig Watkins took office on Jan. 1 pledging to free anyone wrongfully convicted.

Watkins, the state’s first black district attorney, took over an office with a history of racial discrimination, including a staff manual for prosecutors that described how to keep minorities off juries.