Man wants to prove innocence

COLUMBIA - Charles Wakefield Jr. is awaiting his day in court - again.

Thirty years after he was convicted of killing two people, Mr. Wakefield says he has proof of his innocence - a videotape of the star witness against him recanting his story.

His case could get a hearing later this year. It is one of the rare cases in which lawyers armed with new evidence or new technology are attempting to show that long-imprisoned people were wrongly convicted.

Mr. Wakefield was convicted of killing Greenville County sheriff's Lt. Frank Looper and the officer's father, Rufus Looper, in January 1975.

Surviving investigators in the case and some jurors who convicted Mr. Wakefield say the right man is in jail.

In the past 100 years, at least six South Carolina inmates convicted of murder have been cleared legally of the crimes. But the process is not an easy one, said Columbia attorney Joe McCulloch, the founder of Palmetto Innocence Project, a nonprofit organization investigating cases.

"There are needles in a haystack that we are looking for," Mr. McCulloch said.

Christopher Newton, an assistant attorney general, said Mr. Wakefield should be denied a new trial because recanted testimony generally is no longer considered reliable as evidence, citing several state Supreme Court cases dating to 1955.