Jimmy Pontoon

Richmond County, GA | June 12, 1984

CW: Rape

*For confidentiality, the person who was sexually assaulted in this case is referred to as “SW”.

Jimmy Pontoon was wrongfully convicted in 1984 for a rape in Augusta, Georgia, that he did not commit. From the beginning, and now for more than 40 years, Jimmy has fought to prove his innocence. His two alibi witnesses, the complete lack of any physical evidence linking him to the crime, along with advancements in science that allow us to meaningfully appreciate the fallibility of eyewitness identification and the recently uncovered evidence of a serial rapist, all support his innocence claim.

Mr. Pontoon has been suffering the consequences of this wrongful conviction for over 40 years. As a result of this conviction, Mr. Pontoon was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment and, although he is no longer in prison, he is required to register as a sex offender until he dies due to this wrongful conviction. Compliance with the numerous and strict rules of sex offender registry is not easy and failure to comply with the requirements is a major felony, resulting in 1 to 30 years incarceration. This significantly limits Jimmy's freedom and ability to live in the community without stigma. He seeks exoneration to finally clear his name and move on with his life.

In April 2026, Georgia Innocence Project filed a habeas corpus petition based on a Brady violation, seeking to overturn his wrongful conviction. We are awaiting the court’s ruling.

CRIME

On June 12, 1984, at around 10:50 pm, SW was walking alone a couple of blocks from her Augusta home when a man jogged past her. Right after the man passed her, she felt someone—who she assumed to be the same man—come up from behind her and grab her by the neck. That man then dragged her to a nearby construction site, put a shirt over her head, and raped her. She went home and immediately reported the rape to police. SW maintained that she did not see the man during or after the attack. Fingerprints and evidence from the construction site, along with a rape kit, were collected by police.

ARREST

About six days later, SW was at a bar in her neighborhood when Jimmy Pontoon entered. She “recognized” Mr. Pontoon as her rapist and told people at the bar that she was going to call the police, which she did about 25 minutes later. Although Mr. Pontoon heard the allegation, he stayed. He had not raped anyone and so knew SW was mistaken. Thirty minutes after being called, the police arrived. SW pointed out Mr. Pontoon who was immediately arrested despite his protests of innocence.

At the police station, Mr. Pontoon agreed to speak after being Mirandized and continued to deny raping anyone. An interrogating officer told him that the police were interested in obtaining biological samples to compare to SW’s rape kit. Mr. Pontoon voluntarily consented to provide any requested samples. But even with his full cooperation and consistent denials of any wrongdoing, SW’s identification of Mr. Pontoon at the bar served as enough evidence to book him in jail, starting his wrongful incarceration.

INVESTIGATION

Police submitted the rape kit, Mr. Pontoon’s samples, and fingerprints from the construction site to the Georgia Bureau of Investigations (GBI) for testing. The GBI compared the fingerprints at the construction site to Mr. Pontoon’s and determined that they were not Mr. Pontoon’s. The GBI also verified the presence of spermatozoa and seminal fluid in the rape kit, but they never tested Mr. Pontoon’s samples against it. What does that mean? No physical evidence connected him to this crime.

Despite the lack of physical evidence, law enforcement only investigated Mr. Pontoon. Leaning solely on SW’s identification of Mr. Pontoon in the bar, police presented SW with three, in-person lineups, in the hopes that she would once again identify Mr. Pontoon. These lineups were shown back-to-back in the jail. The only breaks in between were to shuffle out all six members of each lineup, reorder them, and bring them back into the room.

This procedure does not follow the appropriate standards for conducting a lineup. The repeated and rapid exposure to lineups is contrary to accurate eyewitness identification. A National Institutes of Health study found “simply being exposed to an innocent suspect in an intervening lineup, whether that innocent suspect is identified by the witness or not, increases the probability of misidentifying the innocent suspect and decreases the probability of correctly identifying the true perpetrator in a subsequent test lineup.” And so, SW identified Mr. Pontoon in all three consecutive lineups.

Based solely on SW’s identification of him, Mr. Pontoon was indicted for this crime.

TRIAL

The trial only took one day, and occurred just three months after the incident. The trial transcript, a mere 76 pages, is shockingly short. Aside from SW’s identification, first at the bar and then in the jail lineups, nothing linked Mr. Pontoon to this crime. 

But SW’s description and identification of her rapist were repeatedly inconsistent—a sadly common occurrence following a traumatic event. 

• Initially, SW identified her attacker as clean-shaven. 
• At the preliminary hearing (a hearing to determine whether there is sufficient probable cause to support the arrest), she said the rapist had a beard but no moustache.
• At trial, SW again testified that her attacker was clean-shaven. 
• During Mr. Pontoon’s arrest at the bar, SW told police that she determined Mr. Pontoon was her attacker because she recognized his voice.
• At the preliminary hearing, she said it was his appearance and explicitly denied hearing his voice at all until after police completed the arrest. 
• At trial, she testified that it was his voice and appearance that caused her to “recognize” him. 

These inconsistencies highlight the fallibility of memory, especially during high-stress and traumatic experiences, and why eyewitness misidentification is one of the most prevalent wrongful conviction factors. This is not to say SW was lying or acting maliciously when she identified Mr. Pontoon as her rapist; she simply made a mistake. Today, it is highly uncommon to see a prosecution based solely on eyewitness identification.

Mr. Pontoon testified on his own behalf and presented the testimony of two alibi witnesses. All three testified that they were watching TV together the night of the crime until the 11 o’clock Nightly News came on. Perhaps because of the lack of evidence and Mr. Pontoon’s alibi witness, the jury reported being “deadlocked” just over two hours into deliberations. In response, the judge gave the jury an “Allen charge,” which are jury instructions that explain to the jury the “desirability” of reaching a unanimous verdict. It is very uncommon for a court to give this type of instruction after the jury has deliberated for only a few hours. Today, this charge is typically only given after at least one day (usually multiple days) of deliberation. And so just one hour after the Allen charge was given, Jimmy Pontoon was found guilty of rape and was thereafter sentenced to 20 years to serve in prison.

EFFORTS BY GEORGIA INNOCENCE PROJECT

Georgia Innocence Project took up Mr. Pontoon’s case and has tried to locate the rape kit in an effort to definitively prove Mr. Pontoon’s innocence. Subjecting the kit to DNA testing that was not available in 1984 would be considered newly discovered evidence that would allow us back into court. And although Georgia Innocence Project continues to seek its whereabouts, multiple agencies have repeatedly stated that there is no record of the location of the physical evidence, including the rape kit.

But hope is not lost for Mr. Pontoon. Georgia Innocence Project recently uncovered what appears to be evidence of a serial rapist whose description and method of attack were consistent with how SW described the rapist and his attack on her. These substantially similar rapes and sexual assaults occurred both before and after Mr. Pontoon’s arrest and subsequent imprisonment—meaning, Mr. Pontoon was incapable of having committed them. The Georgia and U.S. Constitutions require that the State, through the District Attorney, turn over any favorable evidence to a defendant and their counsel. This constitutional mandate was established in the 1960’s through a case called Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 667 (1963). Pursuant to Brady, Mr. Pontoon and his attorney should have been notified by the District Attorney of these similar rapes, including and especially one attack that occurred while Mr. Pontoon was in jail that is virtually identical to the rape experienced by SW. This happened mere blocks away from where SW was raped, and the attacker was described in almost exactly the same way.

The lack of this disclosure constitutes a “Brady violation”. And so, in April 2026, Georgia Innocence Project along with pro bono co-counsel Alston & Bird filed a habeas corpus petition based on this Brady violation, in an effort to reverse Mr. Pontoon’s wrongful conviction.

We believe that Mr. Pontoon, who has consistently maintained his innocence for decades now, even after his release from prison, is in fact innocent and should never have been convicted of this crime.

For more than 40 years, Mr. Pontoon has fought to prove his innocence. Inconsistent eyewitness identification, a missing rape kit, and compelling evidence of a serial rapist, all undermine Mr. Pontoon’s culpability. Because of this conviction, he is required to be on, and comply with the directives of, the sex offender registry—and will be for the rest of his life, unless this conviction is overturned. Living under supervision and labeled as a rapist, he seeks exoneration to move on with his life.