A new study conducted by the University of Michigan Law School and the Center for Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern Law School reports that more than 2,000 people have been wrongly convicted since 1989.
The new archive lists 873 exonerated defendants in detail and finds that those 873 people spent a combined total of over 10,000 years in prison for crimes they did not commit. The study also noted that since the year 2000, exonerations have averaged one a week. Nearly half of the 873 detailed exonerations were homicide cases and included over 100 death sentences.
“We know there are many more that we haven’t found,” professor Samuel Gross, editor of the registry, told The Associated Press. For example, 10 people have been exonerated in Santa Clara County during the studied time period, but none from Alameda County. Gross told The San Jose Mercury News that he believes more exonerations have been exposed in Santa Clara County due to the presence of the Northern California Innocence Project at Santa Clara University School of Law. The Santa Clara District Attorney’s Office also recently reinstated their Conviction Integrity Unit aimed at reinvestigating claims of innocence.
Gerald Uelmen, a professor at Santa Clara Law, said the report shows little progress has been made since he was executive director of the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice which made recommendations in 2008. “The bottom line is we are not doing much better in protecting the innocent,” he told the Mercury News, “despite all the evidence uncovered in the past 10 years of wrongful convictions.”
For more read the articles in the New York Times & San Jose Mercury News.
Check out the registry at: http://www.exonerationregistry.org
