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The Nation - News from Aug. 18, 1985

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A judge in Chicago rejected a request by Gary Dotson’s attorneys for additional tests they contend would clear him of a 1977 rape his accuser now says never occurred. Cook County Judge Richard J. Fitzgerald said that, given the “totality of the evidence” in the case, further tests are not warranted on seminal fluid found in the underpants worn by Cathleen Crowell Webb the night she was raped. Fitzgerald also is weighing Dotson’s request for a new trial. Dotson, 28, was convicted of rape in 1979, but Webb later said the rape never occurred. Illinois Gov. James R. Thompson later commuted Dotson’s sentence.

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