| First Name | Kevin |
| Last Name | Byrd |
| Year of Conviction | 1985 |
| Year of Exoneration | 1997 |
| State of Conviction | Texas |
| Trial, Bench Trial, or Guilty Plea | Trial |
| Type of Crime | Rape |
| Death Sentence | No |
| Life / LWOP sentence | Life |
| Gender of Exoneree | Male |
| Race of exoneree | Black |
| Juvenile | No |
| Type of Innocence Defense |
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| Description / Quotes from Testimony Concerning Defense | ● As defense counsel explained in the opening statement, “Members of the jury, we intend to show — it’s not often a person can have someone else who can say where they were at a certain time — we intend to show through witnesses, who will be his father, his stepmother and a friend of his.” Each of those family members described seeing him asleep on the cough the morning of the crime. |
| Did the defendant testify at trial? | Yes |
| Quotes from Exoneree Testimony | “Q. Did you assault [the victim], sexually assault her? A. No, I did not. Q. Do you know her? A. No, I do not.” |
| Types of evidence at trial |
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| Type of Forensic Evidence |
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| Types of Flawed Forensics |
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| Reason why invalid | (1) Possible masking and degradation |
| Brief Quote / Description of Testimony | Byrd is a nonsecretor. Since no antigens were detected in stain, the analyst simply assumed both the victim and “the semen donor would also be a non-secretor.” The analyst then testified that 15-20% of the population are non-secretors. In fact, no donor could be eliminated. No determination had been made as to the victim’s secretor status. Further, the sample could have lacked antigens not because the contributors were non-secretors, but due to degradation. See Part II.A.1 for a description of the problem of masking and non-quantification and discussion of similar cases. Hair comparison excluded the defendant. |
| Identity of eyewitness |
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| Suggestive Procedures | Yes ● Victim saw defendant at grocery store without police present. This not followed by a line-up or any other identification procedure to test whether the defendant was the attacker or the same person the victim saw at the grocery store (earlier photo array without D resulted in no i.d.) |
| Unreliable Identification? | No ● Discrepancy in description – wrong race |
| Quotes from testimony #2 | Q. Read for the jury this particular statement on to the end, please. A. “The man that assaulted me was a white male, but he had an unusual color of skin. It was a honey brown color, but he was not black.” |
| Highest level reached | Appeal |
| Claims Raised During All Appeals and Postconviction |
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| Citations to judicial opinions | Byrd v. Texas, 1986 Tex. App. LEXIS 7527 (1986) |