Congressional lawmakers have proposed legislation that would create federal grants to establish forensic science standards in an effort to reduce wrongful convictions. The Forensic Science and Standards Act is sponsored by Sen. Jay Rockefeller and Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson. The…
Along with the known causes of wrongful conviction of mistaken eyewitness identification, jailhouse informants, and faulty scientific evidence, Florida’s Innocence Commission has added a new leading cause: lack of adequate funding. In its 171-page final report, the 23-member commission said…
Marcus Lyons was wrongly convicted of rape in 1987. He was later exonerated through DNA evidence in 2007, received a full pardon in 2008 and last month he received a $5 million settlement from the town of Woodbridge for his…
Compensation for wrongful conviction is already hard to obtain in many states but a bill recently passed by the North Carolina state legislature places even more obstacles in front of exonerees who have already endured so much harm. The new…
In an editorial in the Albany Times Union, the editorial board calls for the New York legislature to finally pass bills aimed at protecting defendants from wrongful conviction. “For all the law-and-order bills that move through legislatures like New York’s…
Larry Sims’s rape conviction was overturned last year after serving more than 24 years in prison for a crime that most likely never happened. But what he really wanted was to be declared actually innocent. Sadly, Sims died earlier this…
The U.S. Supreme Court once again weighed whether lab technicians must testify as to the results of DNA tests they perform. However, the answer was anything but clear. In the past few years, the Supreme Court twice ruled that DNA…
The Midwest Innocence Project can prove Ricky Kidd is innocent of the murder that put him behind bars for life. Now if only the court will let them. Ricky Kidd has served 16 years of a life sentence for a…
Investigative reporters at USA Today have discovered an unusual problem with the North Carolina criminal justice system. Based on court records and interviews with government officials, the investigation revealed more than 60 men who went to prison for violating federal…
Five different independent groups have called on Michigan to reform its system for paying lawyers to represent poor defendants. Each time the state has done nothing. Finally, that may be changing due to a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties…
