Racine Judge Orders New Trial For Man Who’s Served 20 Years For Attempted Rape

A judge in Racine has a granted a new trial for a man who has served 20 years for an attempted rape he says he didn’t commit.

Daniel Scheidell was convicted in 1995. His attorney, Carrie Sperling, of the Wisconsin Innocence Project, said the only evidence against him was the eyewitness identification made by the victim. The victim said Scheidell broke into her house in the early morning hours wearing a full face mask and held a knife to her throat.

“Under those conditions, it’s very unlikely that someone could reliably identify the perpetrator,” she said.

Sperling said Scheidell has always maintained his innocence. He filed a motion for a new trial last year when DNA evidence linked another man to a very similar rape just a few blocks away. She said the fact another man may have committed the rape combined with the lack of physical evidence implicating Scheidell convinced the judge that a jury ought to reconsider the case.

The prosecutor in the case has 45 days to decide whether to appeal the judge’s ruling to grant a new trial.

Sperling said 75 percent of wrongful rape convictions can be traced to inaccurate eyewitness identification. An increasing body of research has found that when victims see someone when they are being attacked, they are under stress and are actually less likely to be able to identify the person later.

Correction: This story originally said that 75 percent of all wrongful convictions can be traced to inaccurate eyewitness identification. That figure is actually a percentage of wrongful rape convictions.