Cleared of Rape by DNA Evidence, Man Released After 15 Years of Life Sentence

Jamie Peterson was all smiles Monday after he was released from prison, where he had served 15 years. (Screenshot: UpLiveNorth.com video)

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A Michigan man whose 1998 conviction in the rape and murder of an elderly north Michigan woman was tossed after new DNA testing was released from prison Monday after 15 years in prison.

Lawyers from the University of Michigan and Northwestern University have championed the innocence of Jamie Peterson, 39, who is mentally impaired. He confessed to killing 68-year-old Geraldine Montgomery of Kalkaska, the Detroit Free Press reports, but his lawyers said false confessions are a phenomenon proved to occur in many cases where the defendant is mentally impaired.

Peterson had served 15 years of a life sentence.

New DNA testing last year pointed to another man in the rape and murder – Jason Ryan of Davison, who is awaiting trial on the charges.

Kalkaska County Prosecutor Michael Perreault agreed in a conference Friday not to refile the rape charges against Peterson, who will now be transferred to a transitional center for registered sex offenders at an undisclosed location. At the time he was arrested in Montgomery’s assault and murder, he had been charged with third-degree criminal sexual conduct for having sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend. He was 21 at the time.

If additional evidence develops, the prosecutors retained the right to file murder charges against Peterson in the death of Montgomery, whose body was found in the trunk of her car in October 1996.

“Peterson’s attorneys tried to poke a lot of holes in our case,” Perreault toldthe Travese City Record-Eagle. “My investigators are investigating it, but that could take months or years.”

Out of jail for the first time in many years, Peterson and his attorneys – trial lawyer Robert Carey and Caitlin Plummer of the University of Michigan’s Innocence Clinic – stopped by a Wendy’s, where Peterson had a cheeseburger, fries and shake, and then to a church in Kalkaska, where family and friends were waiting.

“He’s really happy, his family is really happy, and he’s looking forward to starting a new life,” Plummer told UpLiveNorth.com

“I want to pinch myself,” his mother, Becky Peterson, said. “Seems like a dream and that I’m going to wake up.”

At the transitional facility, Peterson will get tips on re-adjusting to life outside of prison walls. The world has changed significantly since he was jailed – for example, technology and social media have revolutionized how people communicate and interact.

“This happened pretty quick for him, he’s been in prison so long, his entire adult life,” Carey said. “He’s got a lot of adjusting to do to society.”

Carey said that in his mind, Peterson’s innocence has never been in question. David Moran, another of the Innocence Clinic, said he’s not worried about the case coming up again.

“We believe there is no realistic possibility that this case will ever be reopened,” Moran said. “All the DNA evidence matches one man and it is not Mr. Peterson.”