Howard was initially tied to the crime by a doctor who compared bite marks on Kemp’s body to Howard’s teeth. But in August, the Mississippi Supreme Court recognized that bite-mark comparisons were not enough to tie him to the murder, and stated that “an individual perpetrator cannot be reliably identified through bite-mark comparison.”
As a result, the case was reversed, rendered and remanded. Howard was released from Mississippi’s death row in December, and he was exonerated on Friday, the Innocence Project said.
“I want to say many thanks to the many people who are responsible for helping to make my dream of freedom a reality,” Howard said in a statement. “I thank you with all my heart, because without your hard work on my behalf, I would still be confined in that terrible place called the Mississippi Department of Corrections, on death row, waiting to be executed.”
