Innocence and Wrongful Convictions

A fundamental tenet of justice is that the innocent should not be punished. But our system is not perfect – it can, and does, make mistakes. Nowhere are the consequences of these mistakes more serious and irreversible than with the death penalty. Wrongful convictions present a significant public safety problem, too: when the innocent are convicted, the guilty go free.

As the resources on this page show, the problem goes back decades, and persists to this day – 6 people were exonerated from death row last year alone. There have been 156 people released from death rows across the country in the last four decades due to evidence of innocence.

Recent Death Row Exonorees in the News

Ray Hinton

Ray Hinton was freed in April, 2015, after a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that his defense counsel was ineffective for not raising clear and obvious doubts that Hinton could have committed the crime. He had spent 30 years on Alabama’s death row. This piece tells his story, and follows two others who were also wrongfully convicted.

Glenn Ford

Glenn Ford was freed in 2014 after spending 30 years on Louisiana’s death row. Shortly after his release, he learned he had terminal cancer, and passed away in 2015. This 60 Minutes story tells the story of him and the prosecutor who secured his conviction from an all-white jury, despite having no witnesses, no murder weapon, and testimony from experts who lacked direct knowledge of the case.

Debra Milke

In March 2015, a judge ruled that Debra Milke was innocent of charges that she had conspired in the murder of her son, after she had spent 22 years on death row. This article outlines her case, in which a detective with a history of lying under oath claimed Milke had confessed to him, despite not having any record of the confession.

Research and News

Silbert, Rebecca et al. “Criminal (In)Justice: A Cost Analysis of Wrongful Convictions, Errors, and Failed Prosecutions in California’s Criminal Justice System.” The Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy, Berkeley School of Law, 2016.

Between 1989 and 2012, 692 felony convictions in California were overturned, with the charges being dropped or the defendant subsequently acquitted.

“Exonerations in 2015.” National Registry of Exonerations, 2016.

There were 149 exonerations in the United States in 2015, a record high. There have been over 1,700 exonerations since 1989.

Gross, Samuel and Michael Schaffer. “Exonerations in the United States, 1989-2012.” National Registry of Exonerations, 2012.

This report analyzes 873 exonerations nationwide between 1989 and 2012, as well as the most common causes for wrongful convictions. Perhaps most troubling is the authors’ conclusion that “there are far more false convictions than exonerations.”

Gross, Samuel et al. “Rate of False Conviction of Defendants Who Are Sentenced to Death.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2012.

This study estimates that 4.1% of those sentenced to death are falsely convicted.

Roman, John et al. “Post-Conviction DNA Testing and Wrongful Conviction.” Urban Institute, 2012.

This study examined a sample of Virginia homicide and sexual assault convictions, and found that in 5% of the cases where DNA evidence was retained, that evidence supported exoneration.

Scheck, Barry and Peter Neufeld. “Junk Science, Junk Evidence.” New York Times, May 11, 2001.

In this column, the co-founders of the Innocence Project outline high-profile examples of flawed forensic evidence leading to wrongful convictions.

Connors, Edward et al. National Institute of Justice. “Convicted by Juries, Exonerated by Science: Case Studies in the Use of DNA Evidence to Establish Innocence After Trial.” National Institute of Justice, 1996

This report examines cases in which DNA evidence was used to overturn convictions by establishing innocence. It includes a case study of Kirk Bloodsworth, the first person to be exonerated by DNA evidence after being on death row.

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