In 1997, Nathan Brown was 23 years old when a Louisiana jury convicted him of attempted aggravated rape. He would spend nearly 17 years in prison before DNA testing finally proved that the biological evidence did not belong to him.
Brown’s case is a stark example of how eyewitness identification, weak investigation and poor legal preparation can combine to produce a wrongful conviction—and how preserved forensic evidence can later change everything.
The Crime and the Identification
On August 7, 1997, a woman was attacked in the courtyard of her apartment complex in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. The assailant bit her, tore open her dress and took her purse before fleeing.
Police soon focused on Brown, who lived in the same apartment complex. He was brought outside in the middle of the night and shown directly to the victim in what later became a central issue in the case. The Innocence Project identifies eyewitness misidentification as a contributing cause of his conviction.
A Trial That Lasted Less Than a Day
Brown went to trial on November 19, 1997. According to the Innocence Project, the private lawyer retained by his mother met Brown for the first time on the day the trial was scheduled to begin.
Brown testified that he had been at home caring for his infant daughter. Four relatives also testified that he was there. Even so, he was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison without the possibility of parole.
The Dress That Changed the Case
Years later, Brown contacted the Innocence Project. With the consent of the Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Office, investigators tested a stain on the shoulder of the dress the victim had been wearing during the attack.
The stain contained saliva and produced a complete male DNA profile. It excluded Nathan Brown.
The same profile was consistent with male DNA recovered from three other areas of the dress. When the profile was entered into the federal DNA database, it matched another man who had been convicted of a felony in Mississippi. At the time of the 1997 attack, that man was 17 years old and lived only blocks from the apartment complex.
Exonerated After Nearly 17 Years
On June 25, 2014, a Jefferson Parish judge overturned Brown’s conviction after the new DNA evidence excluded him and pointed to another individual. The district attorney’s office joined the Innocence Project in asking the court to vacate the conviction.
Brown walked out of prison after serving nearly 17 years of his 25-year sentence. He had maintained his innocence throughout his incarceration.
Why the Case Matters
DNA did more than provide a different piece of evidence. It exposed the fragility of a conviction that had depended heavily on eyewitness identification and a rapidly prepared defense.
The Brown case also shows why preservation of biological evidence matters. The material on the victim’s dress remained capable of producing a DNA profile many years after the original trial. Without that evidence, the conviction might never have been revisited in the same way.
Watch the Muslance Documentary
The Muslance documentary follows the chain from the original identification and conviction to the forensic testing that ultimately overturned the case.
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