Bulletin: National Registry of Exonerations Report: : (Part Three); 'No crimes'. "There have been 22 exonerations since 1989 in which defendants were cleared because new scientific evidence had undermined earlier findings of arson – 8 arson convictions and 14 arson-murder convictions. The pace seems to be picking up. Half of the no-arson exonerations have been in the last four years, and nearly a quarter (5 of 22) in 2015 alone – again a record."

 

"No-crime cases: A record 75 exonerations in 2015 were cases in which we now know that no crime actually occurred, half of the total (75/149). As with guilty-plea exonerations, most crime exonerations were drug-possession cases (48/74) which we will get to below. Here we will discuss the six exonerations that involved homicide convictions in cases in which no crime occurred, also a record number. Five of the six no-crime homicide exonerations were arson-murder convictions in which advances in science demonstrated that the original evidence that the fire was arson proved nothing. For example:  In 1981, Raymond Mora, William Vasquez and Amaury Villalobo were convicted on six counts of murder each for setting a fire in Brooklyn that killed a mother and her five children. The evidence against them consisted of testimony from a fire marshal that the  fire had multiple points of origin and was started with accelerants, and from the building’s owner that she saw the defendants leave the building just before the fire exploded. In 2015, lawyers for the defendants presented evidence to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office that fire scientists now know that the evidence the fire marshal relied on does not prove arson. The Brooklyn DA’s conviction integrity unit picked up the investigation and learned that the building’s owner had admitted she lied when she testified that she saw the defendants at the fire. In December of last year the DA’s office mover to dismiss the charges.  In 1992 the National Fire Protection Association issued a major report, NFPA 921, Guide for Fire and Explosion. NFPA 921 marks a dividing line between arson investigations based on the personal experience of investgators and investigations based on scientific principles and data. All five of the 2015 no-crime exonerations in arson-murder cases were for convictions that occurred 25 to 34 years earlier, before NFPA 921. It’s  taken some time  for the major changes brought about by NFPA 921 to persuade courts to reconsider arson findings that are unsupported by scientific evidence. There have been 22 exonerations since 1989 in which defendants were cleared because new scientific evidence had undermined earlier findings of arson – 8 arson convictions and 14 arson-murder convictions. The pace seems to be picking up.  Half of the no-arson exonerations have been in the last four years, and nearly a quarter (5 of 22) in 2015 alone – again a record."

http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Exonerations_in_2015.pdf