A Texas man has been exonerated of charges of sexual assault that DNA testing proved he didn't commit after spending 26 years in prison and having to register as a sex offender, his attorneys confirmed to Law360 on Thursday.

Tyrone Day walked out of the Dallas County Criminal Court building as an officially innocent man on Wednesday, 33 years after he pleaded guilty to the crime for fear of going to trial and receiving a sentence of life in prison, the attorneys said.

The Dallas County District Attorney's Office dismissed all charges against Day after its conviction integrity unit re-investigated his criminal case and concluded that he was innocent, according to a statement from the office.

"We are pleased to be able to right this wrong, and while we know Mr. Day can't get back the years lost, we hope he finds some solace in seeing that justice has finally been done today," District Attorney John Creuzot said in the statement.

The Innocence Project, a nonprofit seeking the release of incarcerated people believed to be wrongly convicted, and attorneys with Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP working pro bono helped Day get his name cleared after years of litigation.

Vanessa Potkin, the director of special litigation for the Innocence Project, told Law360 that Day's exoneration had been the work of 19 years, and said his story was similar to that of many other people who take guilty pleas under the fear of harsher sentences if they opt for a trial, a phenomenon known in legal circles as the "trial penalty."

"He was under the impression that if he took the plea, he could get out in four years. But if he goes to trial and loses, he's going to be in prison for 99 years. So was there really a choice?" she said.

According to the National Registry of Exonerations, which tracks all known exonerations since 1989, over 3,300 people have been cleared of their crimes. About 29% of the exonerations involve people who pleaded guilty.

Day, who is Black, was 19 years old in 1990 when he was arrested on charges that he sexually assaulted a young woman in the Fair Park area of Dallas. The victim, who is white and deaf, told police that she was walking with her friend when they were approached by a man who offered them drugs. She said that after she refused, three men pulled her into a nearby vacant apartment and raped her.

The woman described one of the attackers as wearing a white hat, and later identified Day as one of them after seeing him walking around the neighborhood wearing a similar hat on the same day of the crime. The woman was never asked to identify her assailants by viewing a photo lineup of potential suspects, and she never signed a sworn statement. But her identification was enough to secure Day's arrest and was crucial to the case against him.

"One of the aspects of Mr. Day's case that really stands out is just the complete lack of investigation that happened," Potkin said. "I think that it's a poignant illustration of how somebody can be convicted and sentenced to spend decades in prison on just so little evidence."

Day, who could not afford a good lawyer, pleaded guilty after his assigned counsel told him that he could face a sentence of life in prison and that he would likely be released on parole in a few years if he took the blame for the crime.

Eager to reunite with his daughters, who were just 2 and 3 years old at that time, Day took the plea. In the end, he was sentenced to 40 years in prison, and spent the next 26 behind bars.

"Like so many people accused of crimes, Mr. Day had no real choice. If he did not plead guilty to a crime he did not do, he would have faced a trial in a system stacked against him, and risked spending the rest of his life in prison," Potkin said.

Day was released on parole in January 2015. Since then, he has worked as a food justice advocate and horticulturist at Restorative Farms, a Dallas-based nonprofit organization.

In 2000, Day sought to have the evidence collected during his criminal prosecution tested for DNA, but was denied the chance. So he turned to the Innocence Project, which since its founding in 1992 has helped 243 people get exonerated of their charges, including at least 196 through DNA testing.

Four years later, the nonprofit agreed to take Day's case and, in 2008, the organization successfully petitioned the state for DNA testing on the victim's sexual assault kit and her clothes. The testing found no match for Day's DNA, opening a path for him to be released. But it still took years before Day could clear his name.

"I think it's hard for people to understand this: what took so long?" Potkin said. "It is very hard in many cases to prove innocence. Once you're convicted… you no longer are presumed innocent, you're presumed guilty. And so all the presumptions in court are against you."

Weil attorneys joined Day's legal team in 2020. In January, working alongside local counsel, they filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, a legal process allowing prisoners to challenge their detention on the basis of constitutional violations, seeking to vacate Day's conviction in light of the DNA evidence and on due process grounds.

Day's attorneys worked with the conviction integrity unit at the Dallas prosecutorial office, which reinvestigated his criminal case, taking into consideration several rounds of DNA testing that found the genetic profiles of three people, all of which excluded Day as a genetic contributor.

The unit also found that the identification by the victim was unreliable. The woman identified Day as one of her attackers from a distance of about 50 feet and never had a chance to look at him closely, leaning heavily on the hat.

About 63% of the wrongful convictions the Innocence Project has helped overturn involved eyewitness misidentification, according to the organization.

The office eventually made a motion to dismiss Day's case, saying he was innocent. In March, Dallas County Criminal Court vacated Day's guilty plea.

Two men were eventually identified through DNA as responsible for the sexual assault. In a statement, the Dallas County District Attorney's Office said the men could not be prosecuted because the statute of limitations has long expired.

"Based on information developed during the state's reinvestigation – specifically the complainant's memory of the night in question — it remains doubtful that the men could or would be prosecuted today," the office said,

Inside a packed courtroom on Wednesday, the criminal court declared Day unequivocally innocent. He will no longer be registered as a sex offender, and he is now entitled to compensation for the years he spent in prison.

Paul Genender, a partner in Weil's complex commercial litigation practice group who leads the litigation practice in Texas, said working on getting Day exonerated was "one of the most exhilarating, meaningful things" he's ever done as a lawyer. The firm invested over 800 hours on the case, he said.

Genender recalled meeting Day inside the Dallas courthouse in October 2020 and sitting for hours combing through the details of his criminal prosecution.

"He doesn't have an ounce of bitterness about him," he said. "He's a joyous person. He's a grateful person."

--Editing by Karin Roberts.