Following the revelations, defense attorneys are expected to start contesting drug convictions in the state. Police say they will alert prosecutors about individuals they know may have been wrongly convicted.
Browsing: Wrongful Convictions
Steven Lopez has not received media attention or any of the $41 million settlement money won from New York City after authorities overturned the rape convictions against the men known as the Central Park Five in 2002.
Women are more likely than men to be convicted for crimes they didn’t commit—or for crimes that never occurred—and they often face harsher sentences, a webinar was told.
Experts say that exoneration work is underfunded in the state and proving someone’s innocence can take years.
In rare instances, courts in Latin America have recognized the dangers of relying on the flotation test, but that has not translated to broader changes in how it is used.
The approach has forced insurers to pay more than $217 million in the last two decades.
Recent research suggests that prosecutors and defense attorneys who are not professional exonerators are more likely to engage in post-conviction bargaining such as agreeing to forego litigation around negligence or misconduct, writes a Loyola professor.
Patricia Cummings, former supervisor of the Conviction Integrity and Special Investigations Unit at the Philadelphia DA’s Office, takes the helm of the National Registry of Exonerations this week. In a conversation with TCR’s Maurice Possley, she discusses the challenge facing the innocence movement at a vexing time for reform.
According to the National Registry of Exonerations, “official misconduct” was a contributing factor in more than 70 percent of last year’s exonerations, such as the case of Muhammad Aziz, wrongfully convicted in the 1965 assassination of Malcolm X.
Advocates argue the state’s current procedure for financial restitution is arduous and inconsistent, forcing exonerees through a frustratingly complex approval process that often fails to pay out.