man walks free after wrongful 1998 murder conviction

Benjamin Cole, 47, was found guilty of murdering Calvin Jenkins in 1998, who was shot in his Greensboro apartment during a robbery. Cole has consistently claimed he is innocent, asserting that he was in Ohio when the murder occurred.

In 2021, Duke Law’s Wrongful Conviction Clinic took on his case. Jamie Lau, the supervising attorney and clinical law professor, stated that upon their initial review, they discovered the defense had not been given access to the investigation file from the Greensboro Police Department. Once the discovery was made, the file included evidence that corroborated Cole’s alibi, confirming he was in Ohio.

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(Duke Law) - “Investigators from the Greensboro Police Department knew all along that evidence in its file contradicted testimony at Mr. Cole’s trial and supported his alibi, yet this evidence was concealed for more than two decades while Mr. Cole was left to die in prison as a result of his life sentence,” Lau said. “He did not receive a fair trial, and the suppression of this evidence was clearly an effort to bolster an already weak case.”

Lau’s team in the Duke Law clinic, working with attorney Robyn Sanders and the firm Troutman, Pepper, Locke, filed a post-conviction motion to vacate Cole’s conviction. Among the claims raised was that one of the state’s original witnesses, who was in the apartment at the time of the shooting and initially identified Cole as a suspect from more than 1,000 potential-suspect photos, changed her claim after hearing Cole speak. Lau says Cole has a Jamaican accent and the witness said the suspect did not speak with such an accent.

“One of the more blatant violations of Mr. Cole’s rights at trial was the prosecutor concealing that the state’s primary witness told him that Mr. Cole could not have been one of the assailants because of his accent,” Lau said.

At an evidentiary hearing held in May 2025, two witnesses who testified for the state at trial testified that the assailants did not have a Jamaican accent and that Cole could not have been involved in Jenkins’s death. Lau says there was no physical evidence in the case and, other than these two witnesses, no other evidence was offered against Cole to establish his guilt.

After the evidentiary hearing, prosecutors offered Cole the chance to enter an Alford plea, which allows a defendant to accept punishment while maintaining his or her innocence. Cole accepted the time-served agreement and entered the plea in front of Judge Susan Bray in Greensboro, saying, “I’m innocent and I just want to be home.”

“Cole’s decision is understandable and we are overjoyed that he will not have to spend another day away from his family,” said James E. Coleman, clinic director and John S. Bradway Distinguished Professor of the Practice of Law at Duke. “Prison is a difficult place, and it is hard to say no to an agreement that guarantees your freedom. Mr. Cole achieved his freedom, but the state denied him justice.”

The Wrongful Convictions Clinic has helped secure more than a dozen prison releases since its founding in 2008.