Herman Atkins

• Alibi

● Defendant’s wife testified in support of alibi.

• Eyewitness
• Forensic Evidence

• Hair
• Serology

• Invalid

The victim and Atkins were both A secretors, PGM 2+1+, and the vaginal swab exhibited type A, PGM 2+1+. The analyst testified that “the activity that I detected could have come from the victim herself, or it could have come from a combination of individuals with those blood types.” The analyst then, however, testified that the combination of people who are A secretors and are PGM type 2+1+ “comes out to about 6.1 percent of the general [white] population” and about 4.4 percent of black people. See Part II.A.1 for an extended discussion of this case.

• Cross Racial Identification
• Victim

• Composite drawing
• Photo array
• Showup

Yes ● Show-up – wanted poster with defendant’s photo shown to victim and eyewitness, repeated in photo array, and then in-court i.d. with one victim

Yes ● Initially uncertain -victim, when shown his photo in wanted poster, was not “100% sure” ● Discrepancy – victim described attacker as skinny and bony, which he was not, with additional discrepancies as to hair length, facial hair, skin color, and shoe size (she said he had huge size 13 feet – he has size 10 ½); another eyewitness described attacker as having a lot of gums showing, which he did not have

One described him as a “lighter shade” and “tall and thin” with short hair “close to the scalp” and said his shoe size “was a 13. I know it was a very large size because we didn’t carry very many of the larger sizes.”