At about 7:30 a.m., on November 15, 1990, a 26-year-old woman, identified as D.F., was getting ready for work at her apartment on Schroeder Road in Madison, Wisconsin, when she heard a knock at the door.
She opened the door to a Black man who said he lived in the complex, which had more than 450 units. He said his telephone was broken and asked if he could use hers. The victim let him into her apartment. While he was on the phone, she went into the bathroom to continue getting ready for work. She said the man came up behind her and pulled a scarf around her face and neck, blinding her. He then sexually assaulted her. He stole $10 from her purse before he fled, leaving her apartment by 7:55 a.m.
D.F. worked with a police sketch artist to create a composite sketch of the attacker. A police stenographer helped make copies of the sketch for distribution. She said that he was gone from her apartment by 7:55 a.m.
The following day, 26-year-old Anthony Hicks, who was black, was stopped on suspicion of drunken driving . He became a suspect in the rape after the stenographer believed Hicks resembled the composite sketch. The stenographer also noticed that Hicks had the same address on Schroeder Road as the victim.
On December 17, 1990, Hicks’s photo was put into an eight-person photographic lineup, and D.F. identified him as her attacker. Police searched Hicks’s apartment, which was a 90-second walk from D.F.’s apartment, but found nothing linking him to the crime.
In D.F.’s apartment, a palm print was found on the telephone and a fingerprint was found on a metal cabinet, which she thought the attacker had touched. However, Hicks was eliminated as the source of the prints. A semen stain was identified on a comforter.
Hicks was arrested that day and charged with two counts of second-degree sexual assault, robbery, and burglary.
Prior to the trial, DNA testing had been performed on the semen stain, but the sample was too small for the testing procedures available at the time.
In December 1991, Hicks went to trial in Dane County Circuit Court. His attorney would later say that he had heard of a new form of DNA testing that could be conducted on hairs, but he never sought it or mentioned it to Hicks.
D.F. testified and identified Hicks as her attacker. She said a Black man had never been in her apartment before. And the only time any Black person had been to her apartment had been 18 months before the attack when a Black woman asked to borrow a blanket.
Karen Doerfer, an analyst in the Wisconsin Department of Justice crime laboratory, testified that five hairs had been recovered from the victim’s bedroom 15 days after the crime when evidence technicians vacuumed the floors. She testified that the hairs were Negroid hairs and were “consistent” with Hicks’s hair. Doerfer also testified that a Caucasian head hair found inside the pants Hicks was wearing when arrested was “consistent” with the victim’s head hair.
Hicks did not testify. He had told his lawyer that on the day of the crime, he had asked a friend to give him a ride to work. But he stayed home sick. He told his lawyer that his friend would testify that Hicks had called him to cancel the pickup. However, his lawyer did not call the friend to testify.
Savannah Williams, testified that she was living with Hicks at the time of the assault. On that morning, she said he left their apartment at about 6:40 a.m. to meet his ride for work. He had been complaining that he was not feeling well. Williams said that Hicks returned after about twenty minutes saying he was not going to work that morning. She was with him, she testified, until about 7:00 a.m., when she left for Rockford, Illinois.
Williams identified a call on the telephone bill made to her mother’s house in Rockford, Illinois at 8:12 a.m., which she said was made by Hicks, reaching her just after she arrived at her mother’s home.
Hicks's employer testified that Hicks called in sometime between 7:00 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. that morning to say he was sick and was not coming to work.
On December 19, 1991, Hicks was convicted of two counts of second-degree rape, robbery and burglary. He was sentenced to 19 years in prison.
After he was sentenced, a new defense attorney arranged for mitochondrial DNA analysis of the hair to be performed at Cellmark Diagnostics in Germantown, Maryland.
When the analysis excluded him as the source of one of the hairs, Hicks moved for a new trial based on the test results. He contended that his lawyer had been ineffective in not having DNA testing done on the hair specimens.
At an evidentiary hearing on the motion, Dr. Charlotte Word of Cellmark testified that the unknown Caucasian head hair, one Negroid head hair, and two Negroid pubic hairs did not yield DNA sufficient for analysis. However, on the one pubic hair that was suitable for testing, Hicks was excluded as the source of the main amount of DNA, Word said.
In August 1994, Dane County Circuit Court Judge Robert Pekowsky, who had presided over the trial, denied the motion for a new trial. The judge concluded that there was no prejudice to Hicks as a result of his attorney’s failure to obtain DNA testing for trial. The judge ruled it was not reasonably probable that a new trial with the DNA testing testimony would result in a different verdict.
In June 1995, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals reversed the denial and ordered a new trial. The court ruled that Hicks’s trial defense attorney had provided ineffective assistance of counsel by not seeking DNA testing of the hair prior to the trial.
The prosecution appealed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. A year later, in June 1996, the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld the ruling granting a new trial, but on the basis that it was in the interest of justice due to the DNA testing.
On July 24, 1996, Hicks was released on bail. The prosecution vowed to retry him.
In early April 1997, further DNA testing on two of the hairs again excluded Hicks and identified an unknown male DNA profile. In addition, Hicks submitted to a polygraph examination. The examiner concluded Hicks showed no deception when he denied involvement in the crime.
On April 23, 1997, Judy Schwaemle, the trial prosecutor, dismissed the case.
Hicks subsequently was awarded $25,000 in state compensation plus attorney’s fees of $53,000. He sued his trial attorney for failing to seek pretrial DNA tests on the hairs and won a jury verdict of $2.6 million. The award was later set aside by an appeals court and the case was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.
– Maurice Possley
Posting Date: 08-29-2011
Last Update Date: 02-16-2026
