| First Name | William |
| Last Name | Gregory |
| Year of Conviction | 1993 |
| Year of Exoneration | 2000 |
| State of Conviction | Kentucky |
| Trial, Bench Trial, or Guilty Plea | Trial |
| Type of Crime | Rape |
| Death Sentence | No |
| Gender of Exoneree | Male |
| Race of exoneree | Black |
| Juvenile | No |
| Description / Quotes from Testimony Concerning Defense | Missing trial transcript of defense case |
| Types of evidence at trial |
|
| Type of Forensic Evidence |
|
| Types of Flawed Forensics |
|
| Reason why invalid | (4), (5) Invalid claim of unique characteristic and probability |
| Brief Quote / Description of Testimony | The analyst testified that Gregory’s hair and the questioned hairs shared a set of rare characteristics. The analyst testified: “A. I told you, there is no statistics on this. I can tell you this is the first time I have ever had a negroid origin hair that has not had a medulla in it. Q. What percentage of people have ovoid bodies in them?A. This is probably the first time I have ever seen an ovoid body in a human hair. I have seen them in cattle hair before.” The analyst also testified that the ovoid bodies were “an unusual characteristic” and that the hairs “more than likely” belonged to defendant. The analyst also testified that five hairs found in the pantyhose mask came from an African American and matched Gregory’s, but failed to disclose that at least one of the two additional hairs didn’t match his. See Part II.B.2 and Part II.F.1 for discussion of this case. |
| Identity of eyewitness |
|
| Multiple eyewitnesses | 2 |
| Lineup Procedures |
|
| Suggestive Procedures | Yes ● No transcript exists, but arrest report and judicial opinion describe a Show-up, conducted after second victim failed to identify defendant in photo array. |
| Unreliable Identification? | Yes ● Initial nonidentification – records describe that both victims initially failed to pick defendant from a photo array. One victim could not see attacker’s face, as he wore a stocking mask. ●Discrepancies in the description, including as to facial hair, eye color, height and hair length |
| Highest level reached | NR |