Tillman Tells Legislators of His Despair in Prison

By Colin Poitras, The Hartford Courant, Conn.

Apr. 11–For nine months, James Calvin Tillman, the East Hartford man who spent 18 years in prison for a rape he did not commit, has been lauded for his poise and his strength in speaking about his ordeal.

But on Tuesday, Tillman didn’t hold back, letting legislators know exactly what it felt like to spend day after day locked in a prison cell, unable to move more than 7 feet, unable to look at the sky when he wanted to.

He spoke of sharing a toilet with a stranger, a cellmate not of his choosing. He told members of the General Assembly’s judiciary committee about the moment he collapsed in despair in his cell, convinced he was going to die behind bars an innocent man.

“I felt like I was kidnapped. I felt like I was raped,” said Tillman, who was freed from prison last July after new DNA evidence exonerated him of the 1988 rape and beating of a woman in downtown Hartford.

Tillman, 45, and his attorney, Gerard A. Smyth, came to the Capitol to support a bill that would give Tillman $5 million in compensation.

In return for the one-time, lump-sum payment, Tillman would waive his rights to sue the state or any of its agencies for his wrongful conviction, for injuries he suffered while incarcerated and for other pain and suffering he endured.

The bill appears to have widespread support, and committee members could vote on it as early as today. It would need approval by both the Senate and the House before it could be sent to Gov. M. Jodi Rell for her signature.

State Rep. Douglas McCrory, D-Hartford, one of the bill’s sponsors, said delaying action or forcing Tillman to obtain compensation through a protracted legal battle would add insult to injury.

“I think we should admit we made an error and move as fast as we can to correct that error,” McCrory told the committee.

State Sen. John A. Kissel, R-Enfield, who is a lawyer, warned that Tillman’s was an “extraordinary sympathetic case” and that the state’s potential for liability was “huge.”

Smyth pointed out several omissions in the state’s handling of the evidence at trial, including the prosecutors’ failure to test a semen stain in the crotch of the victim’s pantyhose — a test that later proved critical to Tillman’s release. The jury that convicted Tillman to 45 years in prison relied primarily on the victim’s identification of him as her attacker, an identification that later proved erroneous.

In light of such circumstances, Kissel urged lawmakers to accept the offer, which he said was “more than fair.”

“My people feel very strongly that the state will rue the day if it does not accept your very generous offer,” Kissel told Tillman. Committee co-Chairman Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, said the state had a moral obligation to make things right.

Smyth, the former head of the state’s public defender’s office, told the committee he is representing Tillman for free and will not accept any payment if a settlement is reached.

An Associated Press report was used in this story.

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