09:43 AM PDT on Friday, May 21, 2004

Associated Press

VANCOUVER -- A 24-year-old woman who spent more than three months in jail after being convicted of shoplifting was freed after her sister confessed to the crime.

(kgw.com Graphic)

District Court Judge Vern Schreiber overrode Reshenda Strickland's Feb. 13 conviction for third-degree theft and ordered her released from the Clark County Jail Work Center on Wednesday. The Vancouver resident had received a six-month jail sentence.

Schreiber's ruling came after City Prosecutor Josephine Townsend reviewed the store's surveillance videotape at the behest of the NAACP, which hired a lawyer to represent Strickland. The prosecutor determined the woman on the tape was Starlisha Strickland, Reshenda's 21-year-old sister.

The NAACP suggested race may have been a factor in the all-white jury convicting someone who merely resembled the suspect, but Townsend disputed that.

"If two people closely resemble each other, there is a chance that people are going to confuse them," Townsend said. "I don't think it comes down to race. I do think it comes down to looking at what evidence was and was not presented."

The jury deliberated for less than an hour after watching the store's surveillance tape and hearing testimony from store manager Kathy Hanna and loss prevention officer Dawn Porter. Both testified they were "100 percent" certain that Reshenda Strickland had stolen baby shoes and other items from the store on March 21, 2003.

Reshenda Strickland had been convicted of theft in the past.

During an earlier interview with The (Vancouver) Columbian, Starlisha Strickland said she had been staying in Atlanta and didn't know her sister had been charged.

"I'm not going to let my sister sit in jail for something I've done," she told the newspaper.

Starlisha Strickland confessed to the crime before Schreiber on Wednesday and was taken into custody. Bail was set at $1,500.