In August 1982, Mr. Geter, a young black engineer in Greenville, Tex., had been arrested in a series of armed robberies in the Dallas area.
He went on trial for one of the robberies - the August 23, 1982 armed robbery of a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise in Balch Springs, Texas for $615 - and despite the absence of any criminal record and testimony provided by nine co-workers at his October 1982 trial that on the day of the robbery he was at work 50 miles away, the college-educated, $22,000-a-year mechanical engineer was identified as the robber by five eyewitnesses, although they contradicted one another about his height, hairstyle and clothing, and he was convicted by an all-white jury. Prosecutors said they believed that he had committed other robberies as well, and he was sentenced to life in prison.
After his conviction, his family took the case to the NAACP and to the media. After months of intensifying publicity, Geter was released from jail and granted a new trial in December 1983. Then, in March 1984, all charges against him were abruptly dropped when a new suspect - an ex-convict was arrested.