Cleared & freed

Jet, Sept 20, 2004

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Caption: Clarence Harrison kisses his fiancee Yvonne Zellars (c) as his daughter Angel Ferrell (1) looks on in a Decatur, GA, courtroom. Harrison, 44, spent 17 years in prison for the 1986 rape, kidnapping and robbery of a female hospital worker who waited for a bus. In 1987 Harrison was sentenced to life in prison. He was recently freed after new DNA evidence cleared him of the charges. Lawyers from the Georgia Innocence Project filed a motion for a new trial; DeKalb County prosecutors did not object. Judge Cynthia Becker granted the request and then dismissed the charges. "I had given up years ago," said Harrison, who maintains that he wasn't bitter about his circumstance. "I think God just carried me on through it."