After serving 17 years in prison for an armed robbery he did not commit, a Marrero man is free today.
Royal Clark Jr. was convicted for the armed robbery of a Burger King in Jefferson Parish in 2003. Today, the Jefferson Parish District Attorney's Office released a statement saying, "forensic advancements in fingerprint processing" led to the conclusion that Clark could not have been the person who left fingerprints at the scene.
A judge vacated his conviction Thursdat, based on the new fingerprint analysis.
That analysis had been requested by the Innocense Project New Orleans and the district attorney's office.
The new technology was able to find fingerprints of the likely perpetrator.
Clark's movement to vacate his conviction was unopposed by the district attorney's office, which verified for the judge the facts that Clark was using to appeal.
Jefferson Parish District Attorney Paul Connick said his office was dedicated to upholding justice.
"As district attorney, my obligation to seek justice does not end upon conviction," Connick said in a prepared statement. "Rather, my obligation is to continue to follow the evidence. When the evidence reveals an individual was wrongly convicted, my office will take action to correct that injustice."
According to The New Orleans Advocate, fingerprints from the scene of the crime were submitted to the state's print database and matched to a man convicted of committing a string of similar robberies in Harvey and Marrero two months after the Burger King robbery.
“We all know now what he’s been saying all along, which is he was factually innocent of this crime,” attorney Kia Hall Hayes said during the Thursday morning hearing.