A new Colorado state law increases eligibility for people convicted of felonies to receive DNA testing, providing a recourse for…
Browsing: Wrongful Convictions
The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a request for a new trial from a man accused of shaking his 2-year-old…
A California man who was tried and jailed for 19 months for the 1987 murder of a 6-year-old boy in…
For our viewpoints series regular contributor Billy Sinclair delves into the Adnan Syed murder case in Maryland and highlights the systemic flaws within the American criminal justice system. Sinclair argues that the case illustrates a disturbing pattern of injustice, where issues such as prosecutorial misconduct, constitutional violations, and victims’ rights intersect. Sinclair suggests that the central concern becomes whether the Rule of Law was violated during Syed’s conviction, emphasizing the importance of upholding constitutional rights even when dealing with victims’ interests.
Courts in Texas are still moving through the sea of people who were charged, convicted and imprisoned under false accusations stemming from the “satanic panic” of the 1980s and 1990s.
In 1990, Jeffrey Deskovic was wrongfully convicted for raping and murdering a classmate. That same year, the ‘Happy Face Killer’ murdered Taunja Bennett. Before the killer came forward, two others were convicted and sentenced for her killing. In both cases, the true perpetrators were able to kill additional victims while the justice system was derailed by flawed police work and false confessions.
“[The settlement] resolves a longstanding civil case involving a horrific crime. Based on the findings of the DA and our review, this agreement is fair and in the best interest of all parties,” said Nick Paolucci from the New York City Law Dept in a statement.
Converting a wrongful conviction to an exoneration should be easy once the evidence is presented. But habit and the vested interests of the justice system make it an uphill struggle, writes TCR legal columnist James Doyle.
Despite representing only 13.6 percent of the population, Black people account for 53 percent of the 3,200 exonerations through August 2022, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Registry of Exonerations.
58-year-old Navy veteran Herman Williams was wrongfully convicted for the 1993 murder of his ex-wife in Waukegan, Ill., and has been serving a sentence of life without parole after a first-degree murder conviction at Sheridan Correctional Center ever since.