Man released from prison after serving 27 years for murder
By JD Franklin III
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GREENSBORO, North Carolina (WXII) — For the first time in nearly 30 years, a Triad man is out of jail and back home with his family.
Benjamin Cole, 47, embraced his mother as he left prison on Wednesday, ending nearly 30 years behind bars for a murder he always maintained he did not commit. Cole was convicted of the 1998 murder of Calvin Jenkins, who was shot in his Greensboro apartment during a robbery.
Cole always maintained his innocence, saying that he was in Ohio at the time of the murder.
Duke Law’s Wrongful Convictions Clinic took on the case in 2021, which discovered records supporting Cole’s alibi that he was in Ohio. The clinic, along with the law firm Troutman Pepper Locke, filed a post-conviction motion to vacate Cole’s conviction.
One of the state’s original witnesses, who was in the apartment at the time of the shooting and identified Cole as a suspect from more than 1,000 potential-suspect photos, changed her stance after hearing him speak.
A supervising attorney said that Cole has a Jamaican accent, and the witness said the suspect did not have a Jamaican accent. Recently, two more witnesses confirmed that the shooter did not have a Jamaican accent and said Cole could not have been involved.
After the evidentiary hearing, prosecutors offered Cole the chance to enter an Alford plea, which allows a defendant to accept punishment while maintaining his or her innocence. Cole accepted the time-served agreement and entered the plea in front of Judge Susan Bray in Greensboro, saying, “I’m innocent and I just want to be home.”
“We, of course, believe he should have been fully exonerated, but today is a day to celebrate Cole’s freedom and rejoice in the fact that he is back home where he belongs,” supervising attorney Jamie Lau said.
“We felt that no one would listen to us when reaching out for help in Benjamin’s case,” Britney Butler, Cole’s sister, said. “We are so grateful that we were finally heard by the Wrongful Convictions Clinic at Duke Law, and we appreciate every student that did anything, big or small, to help bring Benjamin home.”
The Wrongful Convictions Clinic has helped secure more than a dozen prison releases since its founding in 2008.
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