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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Total compensation paid by state and local governments to all exonerees has nearly doubled since 2019 and now exceeds $4 billion, according to Jeff Gutman, a George Washington University Law School professor and special contributor to the registry. The total number of exonerations will grow quickly in the next few years, Gutman said “The number of states that pay compensation to exonerees is growing, many exonerees have claims that are still pending, and we’ll keep seeing more exonerations of innocent people who spent decades in prison, probably at an accelerating rate,” Gutman said. In addition to “official misconduct,” other reasons for the exonerations include 59 cases of ineffectual counsel; 50 cases of mistaken witness identification; 43 instances of false or misleading forensic evidence; and 32 false confessions, the report said."
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STORY: "Exonerations in the U.S. are slowly rising. 3 people were cleared in Kansas and Missouri last year," by NPR Investigative Reporter Peggy Lowe, published by KUCR, on March 18, 2024.
SUB-HEADING: "The National Registry of Exonerations says 153 innocent people were freed last year. A new report credits an increase on innocence organizations and conviction integrity units working on cases.
GIST: "One man in Kansas and two others in Missouri walked out of prisons in 2023 after spending years behind bars for crimes they didn't commit. They joined 150 people who were exonerated nationwide — and a new report predicts that number will grow in the future.
According to a just-released study from the National Registry of Exonerations, “official misconduct” of police, prosecutors or others in the system was the top reason for 118, or 77%, of the 2023 exonerations. A total of 2,230 years were lost to wrongful imprisonment, the report said.
Of the people wrongfully convicted, 84% were people of color, according to the National Registry.
Innocence organizations and conviction integrity units played a large role in the increase, the report said; they were responsible for 63%, or 67 exonerations, in 2023.
The National Registry of Exonerations is a collaborative project of three universities. It provides details of known exonerations in the U.S. since 1989.
In Kansas, Christopher Lyman, who was wrongfully convicted of murder in 2013 in a “shaken baby” case in Geary County, had his case dismissed in July after spending ten years in prison. In Missouri, Lamont Campbell was released in January after a judge in St. Louis overturned the murder conviction that sent him to prison for 12 years. A St. Louis judge freed Lamar Johnson in February after Johnson spent nearly 30 years in prison for the murder of a friend.
In all, the registry grew by 207 in 2023, because 53 exonerations from years past were also recorded. As of the end of last month, the National Registry of Exonerations has recorded 3,478 since 1989, the first year the number was tracked.
Total compensation paid by state and local governments to all exonerees has nearly doubled since 2019 and now exceeds $4 billion, according to Jeff Gutman, a George Washington University Law School professor and special contributor to the registry.
The total number of exonerations will grow quickly in the next few years, Gutman said.
“The number of states that pay compensation to exonerees is growing, many exonerees have claims that are still pending, and we’ll keep seeing more exonerations of innocent people who spent decades in prison, probably at an accelerating rate,” Gutman said.
In addition to “official misconduct,” other reasons for the exonerations include 59 cases of ineffectual counsel; 50 cases of mistaken witness identification; 43 instances of false or misleading forensic evidence; and 32 false confessions, the report said.
The entire story can be read at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater's attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, "Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it's the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.
https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-12348801
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MORE VALUABLE WORDS: "As a former public defender, Texas' refusal to delay Ivan Cantu's execution to evaluate new evidence is deeply worrying for the state of our legal system. There should be no room for doubt in a death penalty case. The facts surrounding Cantu's execution should haunt all of us."
