September 8, 2024
Gregory Dean Tucker was convicted in 2016 of the burglary of a beauty salon in Ferndale, Michigan. This despite the fact that there were no eyewitnesses and no surveillance footage, nor were his fingerprints found inside the studio.
Prosecutors linked him to the crime scene at the time because he was one of two people whose trace DNA was found on a Coke bottle in the salon and that evidence was, apparently, sufficient for a jury to conclude that he was the perpetrator.
Tucker — who has no legal training — filed a pro bono petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the federal district court, arguing that the fact that there was a trace of his DNA on the Coke bottle was insufficient, as a matter of law, to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
And whaddaya know? — He won.
Last month, the court held that “trace evidence found on a moveable object at a crime scene,
absent any other circumstantial proof about when the trace was deposited, is not sufficient by itself to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The Michigan Attorney General is appealing the decision to the Court of Appeals, and Tucker is being held in custody on other charges, but the man deserves some props.