Gregory Tucker served as his own lawyer and won an appeal of a case that rested solely on his DNA being found on a soda bottle in a beauty shop. Tucker was accused of breaking into a beauty shop in Ferndale in 2016 where supplies worth $10,000 were stolen, along with a television, a computer, and a wall clock.
Tucker was charged after his DNA was found on a Coke bottle at the crime scene. Officials couldn’t match other DNA on the bottle to anyone.
Nevertheless, in a last-ditch habeas corpus appeals process, the 65-year-old inmate from Michigan convinced a judge that the DNA evidence alone was insufficient to find him guilty of the 2016 break-in near Detroit, citing decisions made by the U.S. Supreme Court about evidence.
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Judge David Lawson of the United States District Court concurred that Tucker’s case was weak.
Lawson wrote in the August 1 ruling, “Any inference that (Tucker) must have deposited his DNA on the bottle during the course of the burglary was pure speculation unsupported by any positive proof in the record,” per The Associated Press.
The exonerated man told the publication from behind bars that he was “overwhelmed” by Lawson’s decision and that he didn’t know how a bottle containing his DNA got there.
Tucker stated that “a pop bottle has monetary value,” citing Michigan’s 10-cent deposit law. “You can leave a bottle on the east side and it can end up on the west side that same day.”
But even with this triumph, he remains incarcerated for another offense and cannot be released from prison unless the parole board grants him a release.
Meanwhile, prosecutors refuse to give up. The office of the Michigan attorney general announced that it will file an appeal against the ruling that reversed Tucker’s burglary conviction.
