Overturned convictions in the United States
Encyclopedia
AlabamaAlabamaAlabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
Blount CountyBlount County, Alabama
Blount County is a county located in the U.S. state of Alabama. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 57,322. Its county seat is Oneonta.Blount County is a dry county.-History:...
Bill Wilson
Bill Wilson (convict)
Bill Wilson was a man wrongfully convicted in Blount County, Alabama of murdering his wife and child in 1912....
was convicted of the 1912 murder of his wife and child. He was exonerated in 1918 when they were both found living in Indiana.
Jackson County
Jackson County, Alabama
Jackson County is a county of the U.S. state of Alabama. Its name is in honor of Andrew Jackson, general in the United States Army and President of the United States of America. As of 2010, the population was 53,227. The county seat is Scottsboro. Jackson County is a prohibition or dry county,...
The Scottsboro Boys
Scottsboro Boys
The Scottsboro Boys were nine black teenage boys accused of rape in Alabama in 1931. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident dealt with racism and the right to a fair trial...
were nine black juveniles convicted of an alleged 1931 rape of a white girl. Some were later exonerated.
ArizonaArizonaArizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
Maricopa CountyRay Krone
Ray Krone
Ray Krone is an American who was wrongfully convicted of murder. Krone holds the distinction of being the 98th inmate exonerated from death row since the death sentence was reinstated in 1976....
was sentenced to death for the 1991 murder of a bar manager. Bite marks found on the victim were said to match Krone's teeth. DNA tests exonerated Krone in 2001.
ArkansasArkansasArkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
Marion CountyCharles Hudspeth
Charles Hudspeth (convict)
Charles Hudspeth was an American man convicted of murder in Marion County, Arkansas in 1887. On December 30, 1892 he was hanged, although his alleged victim was later found to be alive....
was convicted of the 1887 murder of his lover's missing husband. Hudspeth was hanged in 1892, but the husband was found alive, living in Kansas in 1893.
CaliforniaCaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
Alameda CountyHuey Newton was convicted of the 1967 manslaughter of an Oakland Patrolman. His conviction was overturned in 1970.
Los Angeles County
Geronimo Pratt
Geronimo Pratt
Geronimo Ji Jaga , also known as Geronimo ji-Jaga Pratt born: Elmer Pratt, was a high ranking member of the Black Panther Party...
, a Black Panther leader, was convicted in 1972 of the 1968 murder of a white school teacher. He was exonerated in 1997.
FloridaFloridaFlorida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
Miami-Dade CountyMiami-Dade County, Florida
Miami-Dade County is a county located in the southeastern part of the state of Florida. As of 2010 U.S. Census, the county had a population of 2,496,435, making it the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States...
Joseph Shea was convicted of the 1959 murder of an airline clerk. He was retried and acquitted in 1966.
De Soto County
James Richardson was convicted of the 1967 poisoning murder of seven of his children. He was exonerated in 1989.
Gulf County
Gulf County, Florida
Gulf County is a county located in the panhandle of the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2000, the population was 13,332. The U.S. Census Bureau 2005 estimate for the county is 13,975 . Its county seat is Port St. Joe.- History :...
Wilbert Lee and Freddie Pitts were sentenced to death for the 1963 robbery and murder of two Port St. Joe gas station attendants. They were released and pardoned in 1975.
Leon County
Leon County, Florida
Leon County is a county located in the state of Florida, named after the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León. At the 2010 Census, the population was 275,487. The county seat of Leon County is Tallahassee which also serves as the state capital. The county seat is home to two of Florida's major...
The Quincy Five
Quincy Five
The "Quincy Five" refers to a group of five men from Quincy, Florida who were charged with the murder of a deputy sheriff, but later exonerated.1974 saw the publication of the book David Charles: The Story of the Quincy Five, authored by Jeffrey Lickson...
were accused of murdering a sheriff's deputy. Two were convicted before evidence emerged that exonerated all five.
GeorgiaGeorgia (U.S. state)Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
Chatham CountyChatham County, Georgia
Chatham County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia. The county seat and largest city is Savannah. In the official US Census of 2010, Chatham County had a total population of 265,128 . Chatham is the most populous Georgia county outside the Atlanta metropolitan area...
Douglas Echols
Douglas Echols
Douglas Echols was wrongfully convicted in a 1986 rape case. In 2002, his charges were finally cleared through DNA testing after he served over five years in prison...
was convicted of a 1986 kidnapping, rape, and robbery. DNA tests exonerated him in 2004.
Cobb County
Cobb County, Georgia
Cobb County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia. Its county seat and largest city is Marietta, which is located in the center of the county. The county was named for Thomas Willis Cobb, who in the early 19th century was a United States representative and senator from Georgia...
The Marietta Seven
Marietta Seven
The Marietta seven were defendants on a murder charge who were subsequently exonerated. One, James Creamer, had been sentenced to death, and the others to life imprisonment....
were convicted of the 1971 murder of two physicians in Marietta. The seven were exonerated in 1975.
DeKalb County
DeKalb County, Georgia
DeKalb County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia. The population of the county was 691,893 at the 2010 census. Its county seat is the city of Decatur. It is bordered to the west by Fulton County and contains roughly 10% of the city of Atlanta...
Clarence Harrison
Clarence Harrison
Clarence Harrison was wrongly convicted in 1987 for the kidnapping, rape and robbery of a 25 year-old-woman in Decatur, Georgia. He is the first person exonerated through the work of the Georgia Innocence Project....
was convicted of the 1986 kidnapping, robbery, and rape of a 25-year-old woman in Decatur. DNA tests exonerated him in 2004.
Floyd County
Floyd County, Georgia
Floyd County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia. As of 2000, the population was 90,565. Census estimates for 2007 show a population of 95,618...
Marcus Dixon
Marcus Dixon
Marcus Dwayne Dixon is an American football defensive end who is currently playing for the New York Jets. He was signed by the Cowboys as an undrafted free agent in 2008...
was convicted in 2003 of the rape of Kristie Brown, a 15-year-old schoolgirl. These charges were later overturned by the Georgia Supreme Court and dropped to statutory rape
Statutory rape
The phrase statutory rape is a term used in some legal jurisdictions to describe sexual activities where one participant is below the age required to legally consent to the behavior...
.
Fulton County
Fulton County, Georgia
Fulton County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia. Its county seat is Atlanta, the state capital since 1868 and the principal county of the Atlanta metropolitan area...
Leo Frank
Leo Frank
Leo Max Frank was a Jewish-American factory superintendent whose hanging in 1915 by a lynch mob of prominent citizens in Marietta, Georgia drew attention to antisemitism in the United States....
was convicted of the 1913 murder of a 13-year-old female employee in Atlanta. He was lynched in 1915, and posthumously pardoned in 1986.
IllinoisIllinoisIllinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
Cook CountyCook County, Illinois
Cook County is a county in the U.S. state of Illinois, with its county seat in Chicago. It is the second most populous county in the United States after Los Angeles County. The county has 5,194,675 residents, which is 40.5 percent of all Illinois residents. Cook County's population is larger than...
Majczek and Marcinkiewicz were convicted of the 1932 murder of a Chicago police officer. They were exonerated in 1945 and 1950.
Gary Dotson
Gary Dotson
Gary Dotson Litke, James. , May 9, 1986 Associated Press report. The Ledger of Lakeland, Florida. Accessed October 23, 2009. is an American man who was the second person to be exonerated of a criminal conviction by DNA evidence...
was convicted of a 1977 rape after he was identified by the victim. The victim recanted in 1985 and DNA tests cleared him in 1989.
The Ford Heights Four were convicted of the 1978 murder of an engaged couple. DNA tests exonerated them in 1996.
Anthony Porter
Anthony Porter
Anthony Porter was a prisoner on death row whose conviction was overturned in 1999 due to the investigation of two Northwestern University School of Law professors and students from the Medill School of Journalism, and is notable for being an exonerated death row inmate that was once 50 hours away...
was sentenced to death for the 1982 murder of an engaged couple. He was exonerated in 1989.
David Dowaliby was convicted of the 1988 murder of his stepdaughter. His conviction was reversed in 1991 on the grounds of insufficient evidence.
Lawrence County
Julie Rea was convicted of the 1997 murder of her 10-year-old son. She was acquitted on retrial in 2006.
IndianaIndianaIndiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...
St. Joseph CountySt. Joseph County, Indiana
As of the census of 2000, there were 265,559 people, 100,743 households, and 66,792 families residing in the county. The population density was 581 people per square mile . There were 107,013 housing units at an average density of 234 per square mile...
Richard Alexander
Richard Alexander (exonerated convict)
Richard Alexander is an Indiana man wrongfully convicted of rape and later exonerated by DNA evidence.-Arrest and conviction:In 1996 a suspected serial rapist dubbed by local media the "River Park Rapist" preyed on female residents of South Bend, Indiana...
was convicted of committing two 1996 rapes. He was exonerated of the crimes in 2001.
LouisianaLouisianaLouisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
Orleans ParishShareef Cousin
Shareef Cousin
Shareef Cousin was convicted and sentenced to death at the age of 16 in 1996. He became one of the youngest condemned convicts to be put on death row in the United States...
was sentenced to death for a 1995 murder. He was released in 1998.
Mychal Bell was sentenced to 22 years for assault. Overturned September 14 2007
Gregory Bright
Gregory Bright
Gregory Bright is a New Orleans native who was convicted of second-degree murder in 1974 at the age of 20. He was sentenced to life without parole, served at the Louisiana State Penitentiary. After several years of appeals, Mr. Bright was granted a new trial in 2001 on the grounds that the...
was sentenced to life for a 1973 murder. He was released in 2003.
MarylandMarylandMaryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
Baltimore CountyBaltimore County, Maryland
Baltimore County is a county located in the northern part of the US state of Maryland. In 2010, its population was 805,029. It is part of the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area. Its county seat is Towson. The name of the county was derived from the barony of the Proprietor of the Maryland...
Michael Austin was convicted of the 1974 murder of a grocery store security guard. He was exonerated in 2001.
Kirk Bloodsworth
Kirk Bloodsworth
Kirk Noble Bloodsworth is the first American sentenced to death row who was exonerated by DNA fingerprinting, although his death sentence had already been commuted to two consecutive life sentences by the time his exoneration based upon DNA evidence was in the works.An honorably discharged former...
was convicted of the 1985 rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl. DNA tests exonerated him in 1993.
MassachusettsMassachusettsThe Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
Norfolk CountyNorfolk County, Massachusetts
-National protected areas:* Adams National Historical Park* Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area * Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site* John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site-Demographics:...
Sacco and Vanzetti
Sacco and Vanzetti
Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were anarchists who were convicted of murdering two men during a 1920 armed robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts, United States...
were convicted of a 1920 double homicide and robbery. They were executed in 1927. Governor Dukakis
Michael Dukakis
Michael Stanley Dukakis served as the 65th and 67th Governor of Massachusetts from 1975–1979 and from 1983–1991, and was the Democratic presidential nominee in 1988. He was born to Greek immigrants in Brookline, Massachusetts, also the birthplace of John F. Kennedy, and was the longest serving...
posthumously pardoned the pair in 1977.
Suffolk County
Suffolk County, Massachusetts
Suffolk County has no land border with Plymouth County to its southeast, but the two counties share a water boundary in the middle of Massachusetts Bay.-National protected areas:*Boston African American National Historic Site...
Lawyer Johnson was sentenced to death for a 1971 Roxbury
Roxbury, Massachusetts
Roxbury is a dissolved municipality and current neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was one of the first towns founded in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, and became a city in 1846 until annexed to Boston on January 5, 1868...
murder. He was exonerated in 1982.
MichiganMichiganMichigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
Macomb CountyMacomb County, Michigan
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 788,149 people, 309,203 households, and 210,876 families residing in the county. The population density was 1,640 people per square mile . There were 320,276 housing units at an average density of 667 per square mile...
Ken Wyniemko
Ken Wyniemko
Ken Wyniemko is one of two former prisoners in Michigan released on DNA evidence with help from the Innocence Project.Wyniemko was convicted of first-degree criminal sexual misconduct on circumstantial evidence and the testimony of a prisoner informant, Glen McCormick, who now admits he lied in...
was convicted of a 1984 rape and robbery of a 28-year-old woman. DNA tests exonerated him in 2003.
MissouriMissouriMissouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
St. Louis CountySt. Louis County, Missouri
St. Louis County is a county located in the U.S. state of Missouri. Its county seat is Clayton. St. Louis County is part of the St. Louis Metro Area wherein the independent City of St. Louis and its suburbs in St. Louis County, as well as the surrounding counties in both Missouri and Illinois all...
Johnny Briscoe
Johnny Briscoe
Johnny Briscoe is an American man falsely convicted of rape and other crimes and subsequently exonerated by DNA evidence.-Crime:On October 21, 1982, in the early morning, Larry Smith, an acquaintance of Briscoe, broke into a woman's apartment in suburban St. Louis, Missouri, robbed the woman of her...
was convicted of a 1982 rape and robbery. DNA tests exonerated him in 2006.
New JerseyNew JerseyNew Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
Essex CountyEssex County, New Jersey
Essex County is a county located in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the United States 2010 Census, the population was 783,969, ranking it third in the state after Bergen County and Middlesex County; Essex County's population has declined from 786,147 as of the bureau's...
Bill MacFarland was convicted of the 1911 arsenic murder of his wife. He was acquitted on retrial.
Mercer County
Mercer County, New Jersey
As of the census of 2000, there were 350,761 people, 125,807 households, and 86,303 families residing in the county. The population density was 1,552 people per square mile . There were 133,280 housing units at an average density of 590 per square mile...
The Trenton Six were convicted of the 1948 murder of a Trenton shopkeeper. All six were exonerated by 1952.
Passaic County
Passaic County, New Jersey
Passaic County is a county located in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2010 Census, the population was 501,226. Its county seat is Paterson...
Rubin Carter
Rubin Carter
Rubin "Hurricane" Carter fought professionally as a middleweight boxer from 1961 to 1966. In 1966, he was arrested for a triple homicide in the Lafayette Bar and Grill in Paterson, New Jersey...
, a middleweight boxer who was convicted twice of a 1966 triple murder, conviction overturned in 1985 and indictments withdrawn in 1987.
New YorkNew YorkNew York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
New York CountyThe Central Park Five were five Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
teens convicted of the 1989 assault and rape of a jogger in New York's Central Park. The convictions were set aside in 2002.
Westchester County
Jeffrey Mark Deskovic
Jeffrey Mark Deskovic
Jeffrey Mark Deskovic was wrongly convicted in 1990 at the age of seventeen of raping, beating, and strangling Angela Correa, a 15-year-old high school classmate at Peekskill High School.-Biography:...
was convicted of the 1989 of rape and murder of a high school classmate. He was exonerated in 2006 when the DNA from the crime was matched to another person.
North CarolinaNorth CarolinaNorth Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
Forsyth CountyForsyth County, North Carolina
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 306,067 people, 123,851 households, and 81,741 families residing in the county. The population density was 747 people per square mile . There were 133,093 housing units at an average density of 325 per square mile...
Darryl Hunt
Darryl Hunt
Darryl Hunt is an African American man from Winston-Salem, North Carolina who, in 1984, was wrongfully convicted of the rape and murder of a young white newspaper copy editor, Deborah Sykes, but was later exonerated by DNA evidence...
was convicted of the 1984 rape and murder of a newspaper reporter. He was exonerated in 2004.
OhioOhioOhio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
Cuyahoga CountyCuyahoga County, Ohio
Cuyahoga County is a county located in the state of Ohio, United States. It is the most populous county in Ohio; as of the 2010 census, the population was 1,280,122. Its county seat is Cleveland. Cuyahoga County is part of Greater Cleveland, a metropolitan area, and Northeast Ohio, a...
Dr. Sam Sheppard
Sam Sheppard
Dr. Samuel Holmes Sheppard was an American osteopathic physician and neurosurgeon, who was involved in an infamous and controversial murder trial. He was convicted of the murder of his pregnant wife, Marilyn Reese Sheppard, in 1954, while residing in the Cleveland, Ohio area. Sheppard served...
was convicted of the 1955 murder of his wife. He was acquitted on retrial in 1966.
OklahomaOklahomaOklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
Pontotoc CountyPontotoc County, Oklahoma
Pontotoc County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. As of 2000, the population was 35,143. Its county seat is Ada.-Geography:According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 1,879 km²...
Ron Williamson
Ron Williamson
Ronald "Ron" Keith Williamson was a former minor league baseball catcher/pitcher who was one of two men wrongly convicted in 1988 in Oklahoma for the rape and murder of Debra Sue "Debbie" Carter. His friend Dennis Fritz was sentenced to life imprisonment, while Williamson was sentenced to death...
and Dennis Fritz were convicted in 1988 of the 1982 rape and murder of an Ada barmaid. Both were exonerated in 1999.
OregonOregonOregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
Clackamas CountyClackamas County, Oregon
Clackamas County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oregon. The county was named after the Native Americans living in the area, the Clackamas Indians, who were part of the Chinookan people. As of 2010, the population was 375,992...
Santiago Ventura Morales
Santiago Ventura Morales
Santiago Ventura Morales is a social worker in the state of Oregon. Born in Mexico, he was falsely convicted of murder in Oregon in 1986. The conviction drew national attention when some jurors worked to overturn the conviction, and he was released from prison in 1991...
was convicted in 1986 of murdering a farm worker. He was exonerated in 1990.
PennsylvaniaPennsylvaniaThe Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
Dauphin CountySmith and Bradfield
Smith and Bradfield
Dr. Jay C. Smith was a Pennsylvania high school principal who was convicted and sentenced to death in 1986 for the 1979 murder of Susan Reinert and her two children...
were convicted of the 1979 murder of a schoolteacher and her two children. Smith’s conviction was overturned in 1992.
Delaware County
Delaware County, Pennsylvania
Delaware County is a county located in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. As of 2010, the population was 558,979, making it Pennsylvania's fifth most populous county, behind Philadelphia, Allegheny, Montgomery, and Bucks counties....
Nicholas Yarris was sentenced to death for a 1981 rape and murder. DNA tests exonerated him in 2004.
Philadelphia County
Fred Thomas was convicted of the 1993 murder of a Federal Express truck driver. The conviction was overturned in 2002.
TexasTexasTexas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
Burleson CountyAnthony Graves was convicted of the 1992 mass murder of six people. His conviction was overturned in 2006 and he waited for years for a retrial. On Oct. 27, 2010, he was released after the Washington-Burleson County District Attorney concluded, "He’s an innocent man. There is nothing that connects Anthony Graves to this crime."
Dallas County
Dallas County, Texas
As of the census of 2000, there were 2,218,899 people, 807,621 households, and 533,837 families residing in the county. The population density was 2,523 people per square mile . There were 854,119 housing units at an average density of 971/sq mi...
Randall Dale Adams
Randall Dale Adams
Randall Dale Adams was wrongly convicted of murdering police officer Robert W. Wood, and was subsequently sentenced to death. He served more than 12 years in prison, at one point coming within 72 hours of being put to death...
was sentenced to death for of the 1976 murder of a police officer. He was exonerated in 1989.
Cornelius Dupree
Cornelius Dupree
Cornelius Dupree Jr. is an American who was declared innocent of a 1980 conviction for aggravated robbery, which was alleged to have been committed during a rape in 1979. He had been paroled in July 2010, after serving 30 years of a 75-year prison sentence in Texas...
was convicted of aggravated robbery, which was alleged to have been committed during a rape in 1979. He was sentenced to 75 years in prison and paroled during the summer of 2010. After DNA evidence cleared him of the crime, he was declared innocent in January 2011. His 30 years of imprisonment is the longest of any exonerated inmate in Texas.
Montgomery County
Montgomery County, Texas
Montgomery County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas within the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area. The county was created by an act of the Congress of the Republic of Texas on December 14, 1837. The county was named for the town of Montgomery, Texas. In 2000, its...
Clarence Brandley
Clarence Brandley
Clarence Brandley is an African-American who, in 1981, while a janitor at a high school in Conroe, Texas, was wrongly convicted of the rape and murder of Cheryl Dee Ferguson, a 16 year-old student. Brandley was held for nine years on death row...
was sentenced to death for the 1980 rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl. He was exonerated in 1990.
Smith County
Smith County, Texas
As of the census of 2000, there were 174,706 people, 65,692 households, and 46,904 families residing in the county. The population density was 188 people per square mile . There were 71,701 housing units at an average density of 77 per square mile...
Kerry Max Cook
Kerry Max Cook
Kerry Max Cook is a former death-row inmate who was wrongly convicted for the rape and death of 21-year-old Linda Jo Edwards in 1977. He was born in Stuttgart, Germany. In 1972, he moved to Texas with his family. Kerry Max Cook served over 20 years in a Texas prison on death row...
was sentenced to death for the 1977 murder of a 21-year-old secretary. He was freed in 1997.
Travis County
Travis County, Texas
As of 2009, the U.S. census estimates there were 1,026,158 people, 320,766 households, and 183,798 families residing in the county. The population density was 821 people per square mile . There were 335,881 housing units at an average density of 340 per square mile...
Danziger and Ochoa were convicted of a 1988 rape and murder. DNA tests exonerated the pair in 2001.
VirginiaVirginiaThe Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
Culpeper CountyCulpeper County, Virginia
As of the census of 2000, there were 34,262 people, 12,141 households, and 9,045 families residing in the county. The population density was 90 people per square mile . There were 12,871 housing units at an average density of 34 per square mile...
Earl Washington Jr.
Earl Washington
Earl Washington Jr. is a former Virginia death-row inmate, charged in 1982 with rape and murder. Washington, with an IQ estimated at 69, confessed to the crime, but apparently only after being coerced by investigators. In 1994, DNA evidence indicated that he was not responsible for the crimes for...
was sentenced to death for a 1982 rape and murder. He was pardoned in 2000.
WisconsinWisconsinWisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
Sherman BoothSherman Booth
Sherman Booth was an abolitionist, editor and politician in Wisconsin. Born in Davenport, New York, Booth moved to Wisconsin from New York, just days before Wisconsin was granted statehood. He was one of the only members of the Free Soil Party in the state at the time, and he was a staunch...
was convicted in January 1855 of violating the Fugitive Slave Act. The Wisconsin Supreme Court declared the Federal law unconstitutional and ordered Booth freed. In 1859, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled the Wisconsin court's decision, Ableman v. Booth
Ableman v. Booth
Ableman v. Booth, , is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that state courts cannot issue rulings that contradict the decisions of federal courts, overturning a decision by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin....
, ordering Booth arrested and confined.
Milwaukee County
Lawrencia Bembenek
Lawrencia Bembenek
Lawrencia "Bambi" Bembenek , known as Laurie Bembenek, was convicted of murdering her husband's ex-wife, Christine Schultz, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on May 28, 1981...
was convicted of the 1981 murder of her husband's ex-wife. She was exonerated in 1992.