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The wrongful conviction of Steve Titus was a miscarriage of justice in which Steve Titus (1950–1986), an American businessman, was wrongly convicted of rape. Titus was fired from his job after the conviction and, though the charges were soon dismissed, he became long term unemployed. The crime was later determined to have been committed by serial rapist Edward Lee King. Journalist Paul Henderson was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for his work on the case. Jack Olsen's book ''Predator'' examined the investigation of the crime and the life of the real criminal. == Crime == On October 12, 1980, a female hitchhiker was raped. Police described the rapist as 25 to 30 years old, driving a royal blue car with temporary license plates and cloth seats, and having a beard. The rape was reported to have taken place at 6:45 p.m. The victim walked to a nearby house, and after approximately 10 minutes of conversation, called the police at 7:22 p.m. There were tire prints found near the scene which matched that of a Michelin XYZ tire, which was standard on 1981 Honda Accord LX cars, a model that was first sold in September, 1980. The victim reported that there was a large brown folder in the car and that the rapist wore a three piece suit. Steve Titus was arrested and was later identified by the victim in a line-up. Like the rapist, he had a beard. He had a new car, a royal blue Chevrolet Chevette. However, the car had neither Michelin tires nor cloth seats. The car had a large brown folder which Titus later claimed was planted in the car by the police. He did not have any suits. Psychologist Elizabeth Loftus argued at trial that the victim had elicited a false memory of the attacker due to a biased line up. When shown a line up of suspects the victim had initially claimed that Steve Titus was the man who looked the most similar to the attacker. Later in court the victim said that she definitely knew it was him. Her perceptions had been changed throughout the process of going to court through cues which created a false memory. At trial prosecution testimony was changed and evidence of innocence was explained away by prosecution experts and law enforcement officers. As a direct result, Titus was wrongly convicted of Rape in the First Degree, a crime that carried with it a mandatory prison sentence. Working with investigative reporter Paul Henderson of the Seattle Times, Titus' new attorney, Jeff Jones, whom Titus had hired to pursue an appeal of his conviction, was able to convince the trial judge to grant a new trial based upon evidence developed by Henderson, arguing that Titus' trial attorney had been ambushed by surprise testimony which directly contradicted evidence contained in the Port of Seattle Police investigative reports. Subsequently, as a result of good police work by a local municipal police officer who had been following the new articles about the case, a lead was developed as to a new suspect. That lead was followed up by the King County Police Department whose investigation led to the arrest of Edward Lee King, aka "Mac Smith", who eventually confessed to the crime.〔("Washington State’s Wrongfully Convicted", ''Seattle Weekly'', 12 May, 2013 )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Wrongful conviction of Steve Titus」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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