By Jon Murray
Indianapolis Star-Tribune
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — An Indianapolis man has sued Marion Superior Court for mishandling a judge’s order clearing him of robbing and raping a woman, delaying his release from prison by two years.
Harold D. Buntin, 38, was released from prison in April 2007. He had been convicted of the crime in absentia in 1986 and was sentenced to 50 years in prison. He began serving his sentence in 1994 after he was arrested in Florida, and he appealed, believing DNA evidence would clear him.
Two DNA analyses indicated he was not the man who raped a 22-year-old clerk at a Northside cleaners in 1984. And in May 2005, Master Commissioner Nancy L. Broyles in Criminal Court 5 cleared him -- but her order never was properly sent out by the court’s staff or entered into the court’s computer.
As time wore on, Buntin and his family pressed the court to explain why there hadn’t been a ruling. Court officials retrieved the file from storage and found the 2005 order.
Buntin is seeking damages for wrong detention. After his release last year, he said he remained upset and frustrated.
“I’m going to move on and take care of my business,” he said at the time. “But I feel like somebody has to answer for that. I never should have been in jail -- and I spent two more years there after they knew I was innocent.”
In last year’s order clearing Buntin, Judge Grant W. Hawkins and Broyles wrote: “Whether the bailiff failed to follow the provided directions or whether the deputy clerk assigned to this court failed to discharge her responsibilities, the order was never entered of record and copies were never distributed to the interested parties. ... Rather, the file was closed and archived as if the court’s order had been properly entered into the record.”
The lawsuit names the court, the clerk’s office, and Marion County. All failed to follow Indiana court rules, it says.