- 7,384
- 10,175
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2012
[h3]The Number of Exonerations Continues to Grow[/h3]
As of Dec 2013 the number of exonerations documented in the United States was 1,250.
Exonerations nationwide are documented in The National Registry of Exonerations,which is a joint project of the Michigan Law School and Northwestern University School of Law. The registry is a searchable and detailed database of information about those who have been exonerated from prison in the United States.
Samuel R. Gross, law professor at the University of Michigan School of Law , and Rob Warden, executive director of The Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern School of Law, began reviewing data on exonerations in the United States in 1989.
In 2012, with the help of law student Michael Shaffer and many other volunteers, they published a comprehensive review of exonerations on a national scale and launched the website for the National Registry of Exonerations The report contains extensive research data from 1989 to 2012. The three help to define and clarify exonerations and the processes behind them. The report also significantly explained in large detail reasons for wrongful convictions. Here are some excerpts from the inaugural report from The National Registry of Exonerations.
“DNA exonerations also take longer than non-DNA exonerations; the median time from conviction is 14.9 years compared to 7.8 years. This is true for homicide cases, where the median time is 15 years with DNA and 11.9 years without; for sexual assault cases, where the comparable numbers are 14.6 years and 7.1 years; and for child sex abuse exonerations, where the median times are 17 years with DNA and 5.9 without DNA.”
“The 873 exonerations in the Registry come from 43 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, 19 federal districts, and the military. They are very unevenly distributed by state, and especially when broke down by county. This suggests we are missing many cases – both innocent defendants from jurisdictions where exonerations are vanishingly rare, and exonerated defendants whose cases have received little or no public attention.”
Along with detailing information regarding DNA testing for exonerations and national data, Gross and Ward explain the types of situations that may lead to wrongful incarceration. These situations are many and varied though common themes tie them together. Some of the most egregious wrongful convictions stem from official misconduct on behalf of law enforcement or the courts.
“The range of misconduct is very large. It includes flagrantly abusive investigative practices that produce the types of false evidence we have discussed: committing or procuring perjury; torture; threats or other highly coercive interrogations; threatening or lying to eyewitnesses; forensic fraud. At the far end, it includes framing innocent suspects for crimes that never occurred. The most common serious form of official misconduct is concealing exculpatory evidence from the defendant and the court.”
The average number of exonerations has grown by about 220 cases per year. The website is an invaluable resource that is intuitively designed and makes searching out exonerees a simple task. The website allows the user to search using name, exoneration date, contributing factors to exoneration, location, and status. The website also provides relatively short biographies of those profiled and their history regarding their exoneration.
Here's a link to the website where y'all can read some of the stories :
https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/about.aspx
These are some of the featured exonerations:
David BoyceState: VA
Date of exoneration: 9/18/2013
In 1991, David Boyce was sentenced to life in prison for capital murder. At trial, the killer was said to have shoulder length hair. Boyce was exonerated after it was discovered that prosecutors concealed a photograph of him taken on the day of the crime, with short hair.
Reginald GriffinState: MO
Date of exoneration: 10/25/2013
In 1983, Reginald Griffin, a Missouri prison inmate, was sentenced to death for the stabbing death of a fellow inmate. In 2011, the conviction was reversed after a critical witness recanted and it was revealed that the prosecution had concealed evidence that another inmate was the killer. Griffin (pictured with his mother, Jonnie Mae after his release in 2012) was exonerated in October 2013.
Daniel TaylorState: IL
Date of exoneration: 6/28/2013
Arrested at age 17, Daniel Taylor was sentenced to life without parole for a 1992 double murder in Chicago. Investigations by the Chicago Tribune, the Illinois Attorney General's Office and the Center on Wrongful Convictions revealed that police and prosecutors lied and concealed evidence that Taylor was in police custody at the time of the murders.
David MunchinskiState: PA
Date of exoneration: 6/1*****13
David Munchinski was convicted of a 1977 double murder in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, and sentenced to life in prison. He was exonerated after his daughter and students at the Innocence Institute at Park Point University showed that the prosecution concealed evidence that the only witness who claimed to have seen the killings had lied, and evidence that others were the real killers.
Seth PenalverState: FL
Date of exoneration: 12/21/2012
Seth Penalver was sentenced to death in Florida in 1999 for a triple murder after his first trial ended with a hung jury. No physical evidence linked him to the crime and two supposed eyewitnesses testified they could not identify him. His conviction was reversed and he was acquitted on December 21, 2012, when new evidence confirmed that police pressured witnesses to identify him and concealed a payment to one witness.
Cathy WatkinsState: NY
Date of exoneration: 12/13/2012
Cathy Watkins (left), Eric Glisson, Devon Ayers, Michael Cosme and Carlos Perez were sentenced to 25 years to life for the 1995 murder of a livery driver in the Bronx. In 2012, a federal investigation identified the real killers, two gang members who admitted their guilt. Watkins and Glisson were released on December 13. Ayers, Cosme and Perez remain in prison while they seek a new trial in a related case.
I can't even imagine being on the yard serving time for some **** I know I didn't do, let alone football numbers
I know some states have programs in place were you get compensation tied to the amount of time you were locked up but you can't really put a price on someone's freedom IMO, especially when you consider the fact these are years that could have been spent with friends, family, significant others, etc. you can't get that **** back
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Aware me how this is old news? This project compiling the exonerations was just launched last year with 891 cases and has been growing since
