Forty years after his arrest for a crime he never committed, Mallory Nicholson stood before Dallas County State District Court Judge Chika Anyiam. This time it was for the news he wanted to hear. He's been exonerated.
"It takes people like you to show the flaw in the criminal justice system. Congratulations." Anyiam said. "And on behalf of the state, the justices, the judiciary, all the players that contributed to this atrocity, I apologize."
"Thank you very much, your honor. I appreciate those words very much," Nicholson told the judge.
Nicholson was convicted of sexually assaulting two boys in 1982 and sentenced to 55 years in prison. He served 21 years of the sentence when he was paroled in 2003. His contact with law enforcement, though, did not end there. Nicholson was branded a sex offender for life, a designation that would haunt him in his effort to find employment for 19 years.
"He has been out, but he has not been free," said Adnan Sultan, a lawyer with the Innocence Project in New York who has worked on the case. "He has had a rotating cast of parole officers who have set things up in a way designed for him to fail. Multiple reportings during a week, surprise visits by police officers telling him he had to be at home and then not showing up. They tried to make him fail, but he didn’t fail."
Nicholson credited his faith in God with keeping him on track.
"I’m a God-fearing person, as is my wife, and I just put it in God’s hand one day at a time," Nicholson said.
Nicholson’s case could serve as a pristine example of the, sometimes, raw justice meted out in Dallas County during that time. Nicholson was accused of sexually assaulting a woman. At the time the crime was being committed, Nicholson was attending his wife’s funeral in Waxahachie. Yet, even with that fact presented in court, the jury still believed the prosecutors.
It ended up that there was other evidence the state withheld from Nicholson’s defense lawyer.
“We still do not know what went wrong between who was initially identified, who we do know was a person and did some of the things that were described, but unfortunately is now deceased, to Mr. Nicholson,” said Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot, who has championed for charges against Nicholson to be dropped. "Knowing that evidence should have been given over. It should have been considered by a grand jury. He never should have been indicted."
According to the Innocence Project, "On June 12, 1982, two boys, 7- and 9-year-old cousins, were approached by a young man who offered them $5 to help him enter an apartment window. Once inside, the man stole several items and sexually assaulted both children. The boys told their aunt, who called the police, and they were taken to Parkland Hospital for sexual assault examinations. Both boys initially told police and the examining doctor that they had been assaulted by a 14-year-old Black boy. They also provided the attacker’s nickname to police who later learned he lived near the crime scene. Two days after the assault, police drove one of the victims to the crime scene. On the way, the boy saw 35-year-old Mallory Nicholson standing in front of an apartment building with friends and claimed he was the person who had committed the crime."
Nicholson was the victim of misidentification and racial bias that was present at the time, the Innocence Project contends.
Standing by his side was his wife.
"She asked me one question, 20 years ago, almost, 'Did you commit this crime?' I said, 'No.' She said 'Well that's good enough for me. It's time to roll our sleeves up and start this fight.' And we haven't looked back," Nicholson said.
Although he is no longer a registered sex offender, Nicholson may not have to work again. He may be entitled to more than $2.1 million in wrongful victim compensation, according to Cory Session of the Innocence Project in Texas.
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