Other Convicted Innocents

Eric Sarsfield

Year of Incident: 1986
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Charge: Rape
Conviction: Rape
Sentence: 10 - 15 years
Year of Conviction: 1987
Year of Exoneration: 2000
Sentence Served: 9.5 years
Real perpetrator found? Not yet
Compensation? Not yet

Eric Sarsfield was convicted of the August 24, 1986 rape of a Middlesex County, Massachusetts woman by a stranger. More than three months after the crime, Sarsfield was brought in for a one-on-one show-up, during which the victim offered a less than certain identification of him as her attacker. The case went to trial, and Sarsfield was convicted of the crime on July 14, 1987. Despite the existence of a rape kit with biological specimens, the Commonwealth offered no physical evidence at trial to link Sarsfield to the crime and, to a large extent, based its case on the victim's identification. Eric Sarsfield was sentenced to ten to fifteen years in state prison. His sentence was stayed, pending appeals, until late 1989, at which point he began serving time.

Throughout the trial and his post-conviction appeals, Eric Sarsfield maintained his innocence, rejecting multiple offers for early release from prison in exchange for an admission of guilt. On December 29, 1997, he filed a motion seeking DNA comparison testing of items in the rape kit, which the Commonwealth opposed. The judge granted the motion, and DNA testing was conducted on clothing the victim wore at the time of the crime. In March, 2000, the test results came back, indicating that Sarsfield was excluded as the source of semen found on the clothing. Unsatisfied, the District Attorney's office requested and was granted permission to conduct additional testing on vaginal swabs and a blood swatch from the rape kit. Those results also excluded Mr. Sarsfield, and his attorney filed and was granted a motion for post-conviction relief on August 3, 2000. The District Attorney's office did not re-prosecute. Eric Sarsfield, who was released on parole in June, 1999, served nine years in prison for a crime he did not commit.