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Study: Record Number of US Convicts Cleared in 2013

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Study: Record Number of US Convicts Cleared in 2013 Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/26037120 4 February 2014 Last updated at 12:58 ET Study: Record number of US convicts cleared in 2013 The number of US convicts cleared of their alleged crimes reached a record high in 2013, a new study reports. The National Registry of Exonerations said 87 people were cleared last year. It has recorded 1,281 exonerations in the US since 1989. The previous annual high came in 2009, with 83, but the registry continues to add past data. The report put the rise down to a growing responsiveness among authorities to claims of innocence. The state of Texas led the US with 13 exonerated cases, the report said. Illinois and New York also had a high number of people exonerated of crimes for which they had spent time in prison. Guilty pleas The 2013 report from the National Registry of Exonerations, a project of the University of Michigan and Northwestern University law schools, noted those who were cleared last year were convicted on average more than 12 years ago. A senior researcher at the registry, Maurice Possley, told the BBC the large number of cases in which DNA helped win exonerations has lent credibility to convicts' claims of innocence in the eyes of the courts and the prosecutors. "DNA has given us this window into the criminal justice system and what can go wrong," he said. Now, claims of innocence are less likely to be dismissed "out of hand". "It's a more level playing field," he said. The report found 17% of those cleared had pleaded guilty to the alleged crimes, likely under pressure from prosecutors who threatened to pursue more aggressive charges with longer sentences if defendants went to trial. However, the report noted those who pleaded guilty despite their innocence were far less likely to receive assistance in contesting their cases later on. Of the cases reported by the project, 47% were for homicide, including one exoneration of a defendant who had been sentenced to death. And almost a third of the people cleared were convicted in cases in which no crime in fact had been committed, the researchers found. A little more than a third of the exonerations happened with the initiative or co-operation of law enforcement. "Police and prosecutors appear to be taking increasingly active roles in reinvestigating possible false convictions, and to be more responsive to claims of innocence from convicted defendants," the authors wrote. The exonerated convicts were pardoned, had charges dismissed by the courts, were acquitted on retrial, or were issued "certificates of innocence" or the like by a court. Among the more than eighty cases of exoneration in 2013: In 2012, Adam Tatum was wrongfully convicted of assault on a police officer and of possession of marijuana. He pleaded guilty but he was exonerated after CCTV footage showed he was beaten by police officers. David Ranta was convicted in 1991 of murdering an esteemed rabbi in Brooklyn, New York. He was exonerated 22 years later after a new investigation found detectives pressured and bribed witnesses to testify against him. Eight years after her conviction for killing her four-year-old son Jacquari, who was found asphyxiated by an elastic band in 2005, Nicole Harris was exonerated after evidence was presented that police coerced her into confessing and that the boy's brother saw him wrap the band around his neck while he was playing Spiderman. The brother, then six, had been ruled incompetent to testify by a judge. Gerard Richardson served 19 years in a New Jersey prison for the murder of teenager Monica Reyes. He was convicted largely on bite-mark evidence taken from the victim's back, but new testing showed the bite mark contained another man's DNA. Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25831553 21 January 2014 Last updated at 14:30 ET US judge hears appeal on teen executed in 1940s Newspaper reports at the time said the 95lb (43kg) George Stinney could not fit into the straps in the electric chair A South Carolina judge is hearing arguments over whether to grant a new trial to a 14-year- old black boy executed for murder in 1944. George Stinney's supporters say his conviction for the murder of two white girls was tainted by the era's racist justice system and a lack of evidence. Most evidence in the case, including Stinney's alleged confession, has been lost over time. Analysts say it is unlikely Stinney will be granted a new trial. But those seeking Stinney's exoneration say they will apply for a pardon if the trial is not granted. 'Day in court' Speaking before a packed courtroom on Tuesday, Judge Carmen Mullen said the case was a "tragic situation," the Post and Courier newspaper reported. "No-one here can justify a 14-year-old child being charged, tried and executed in 83 days," she said. Advocates, including George Frierson (centre), say they will continue to fight to exonerate Stinney regardless of the appeal's outcome "In essence, not much was done for this child when his life lay in the balance." Judge Mullen noted she was not going to rule on whether or not Stinney was innocent but whether he received a fair trial. Two girls, seven and 11, were found beaten to death a day after they reportedly spoke to Stinney and his sister. After a search party found the girls, the teenager was reportedly pulled from his parents and interrogated without a lawyer. Only a few months passed between the time of the murders and Stinney's execution. On Tuesday, prosecutor Ernest Finney said the loss of evidence in the case did not mean it was deliberately destroyed. "Back in 1944, we should have known better, but we didn't," Mr Finney, who is the son of South Carolina's first black chief justice, told the Associated Press news agency. He said prosecutors did a good job in the context of South Carolina's legal system during that period. One of Stinney's most outspoken supporters, George Frierson, said he had spent a decade fighting to get the boy exonerated. "Somebody that didn't kill someone is finally getting his day in court," he said. Stinney remains the youngest person executed in the US in 100 years. Outcry at the time over a 14-year-old going to the electric chair did not stop the execution. According to contemporary newspaper accounts, Stinney's diminutive size - he weighed 95lb (43kg) and stood about 5ft 2in (1.57m) tall - gave his executioners trouble carrying out the sentence. He was so small the straps of the electric chair did not fit around him, and an electrode was too big for his leg. Mr Frierson and others working on behalf of Stinney's family say they have gathered new evidence, including sworn statements from his relatives accounting for him on the day the two girls were killed, as well as a statement from a pathologist disputing the autopsy findings. South Carolina at the time was a centre of the southern US states' official segregationist racism, known as the Jim Crow system. In that atmosphere, police in Clarendon County undertook little investigation after they decided Stinney was to blame for the murders, Stinney's family and supporters say. A photograph of Stinney (right, in prison clothes) taken about a week before his execution illustrates how small the boy was On Tuesday, Stinney's sister told local broadcaster WLTX her brother was innocent, and police had forced a confession out of him. "[The police] were looking for someone to blame it on, so they used my brother as a scapegoat," Amie Ruffner told the broadcaster. Relatives of one of the girls killed, 11-year-old Betty Binnicker, have recently spoken out as well. One relative said Stinney was known to threaten to fight or kill people who came too close to the grass where he grazed the family cow. .
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