Date of Incident: 1999
Date of Conviction: 2000
Exoneration Date: 2001
Charge: Rape
Conviction: Rape
Sentence: 7 years
Sentence Served: 10 months
Contributing Causes: Wrongful eyewitness identification and lack of scientific testing of evidence
Compensation:
Frank Alan BUTTON
Frank Alan Button was convicted of the 1999 rape of a 13 year old girl from an indigenous community in Queensland.
Mr Button had been staying with the young girl’s family when the rape occurred. A semen stain had been found on the bed sheets, and it revealed a DNA profile. No tests had been performed on the bed sheets from where the incident occurred. The authorities reasoned that because Mr Button had been staying with the family at the time, it was likely that his DNA would be present on the bed sheets. No DNA evidence was used in the original trial. The young victim nominated Mr Button as the offender.
Mr Button lodged an appeal that raised the absence of scientific DNA evidence in his trial. The DNA profile identified from the bed sheets was not a match to Mr Button. This excluded Mr Button from been the offender.
The DNA was eventually sent through the convicted offender database, and it found a match. The DNA was from a convicted rapist who met the victims’ original description of the offender. He also lived in the same community as the young girl.
This was the very first case in Australia in which an offender was released from prison as a result of DNA evidence. Mr Button was released from prison after being wrongfully convicted of rape. He had served 10 months of his seven year sentence before being released. The conviction was quashed and the judge called it “a black day in the history of the administration of criminal justice”.
