Commonwealth of Virginia v. Julius Earl Ruffin

On December 6, 1981, Julius Ruffin, a 28-year-old black male, was accused of raping, sodomizing and raping a woman in her home.



The victim, a nursing student, got on an elevator at the medical schShe was arriving home from her job as a surgical technician around midnight on December 5, 1981—a 32-year-old mother of three young children in the middle of a divorce. Her son and twin daughters were spending the weekend with their father, but Meng could not relax. "I felt really uncomfortable and I had this feeling that someone was there, so I went through the whole apartment, looked in all the closets first before I finally went to bed and to sleep."



Two hours later, she awoke to find a man leaning over her with a knife pressed to her throat. Her single shriek was muted when his large hand clamped over her mouth. "If you scream, you're dead," he said.



For the next 45 minutes, he never stopped talking, alternating between threatening to come back and cripple her, or maybe kill her along with her children, and expressing his desire for her. "He said, 'I've fallen in love with you, but you probably wouldn't want a relationship with someone like me, would you?' I said, 'Maybe if we'd met another way,'"



Some time later she got on an elevator at the medical school with Ruffin. He immediately call the police and reported that Ruffin was the man who raped her.



Ruffin's girlfriend testified that was with her at the time the victim was attacked.



The victim said the attacker was 5' 8" tall. Ruffin was 6' 1."



The victim claimed that she was certain that Ruffin was the man who sexually assaulted her. "I never believed I could make a mistake like that. Never.



Forensic testing of seman linked to a group that contained only 8% of all African American males.

Ruffin was tried three times before he was convicted on October 1, 1982. He was sentenced to life in prison.



In 2002, Virginia passed a law that allowed felons to petition the courts for DNA testing.



In 2003, DNA testing on a swab sample. Ruffin was excluded as the perpetrator and another man was identified as the attacker.



Ruffin was released from prison on February 13, 2003 and was was exonerated in 2003.



Twelve men were exonerated as a result of testing of materials saved by Virginia State forensic scientist Mary Jame Burton.



The woman who claimed that it was Ruffin was the man who attacked where remained convinced that he was the attacker.



The Virginia legislature approved $1.225 million in compensation for Ruffin for the harm caused to his for being wrongfully convicted and incarcerated.