On May 29, 2025, Douglass Haynie, 62, became a free man after spending 32 years in prison for a murder he did not commit. The State’s Attorney for Worcester County, MD, dismissed the charges against him after agreeing that a judge should grant Haynie’s petition for a Writ of Actual Innocence.
Haynie was convicted in the fatal shooting of a man in Snow Hill, MD, in 1993. His case was reviewed thanks to the efforts of the University of Baltimore Innocence Project Clinic. After it came to light in 2007 that a noted Maryland State Police ballistics expert, Joseph Kopera, had lied about his credentials, defense attorneys saw opportunities to have convictions overturned due to falsified forensic evidence.
The case against Haynie hinged on Kopera, who testified that a bullet recovered 16 days after the crime, and outdoors, “matched” a gun that was turned over to police by Haynie’s then-girlfriend in Virginia. The only other prosecutorial evidence was weak and legally insufficient without the ballistics “match.”
In addition, eyewitnesses to the shooting reported there were multiple individuals on the scene, and one witness reported seeing another person – not Haynie – run away after the shot rang out. The erroneous ballistics “match” ruled out the other suspect and made Haynie the prime target of the investigation.