THE FIRST 1,600 EXONERATIONS 1. Background The National Registry of Exonerations is a project of the University of Michigan Law School. It was launched in May 2012. At that time the Registry listed 891 cases. Three years later, the Registry includes more than 1,600 exonerations, an increase of more than 700, or about 80%. The Registry changes constantly. We add exonerations every week. We have removed a few cases after learning that they do not in fact meet our criteria. And we constantly update summaries of cases that are already listed to add missing data and correct errors, based on our own research and on information from others. We also prepare periodic reports on the cases in the Registry. Given the nature of our work, each such report is a snapshot of the data on a particular date. For current information on any case and to view the most recent cases, patterns and summaries, please consult the Registry website. The first was released when the Registry was launched in May 2012: Exonerations in the United States, 1989-2012 (the Exoneration Report). It describes the 873 exonerations that we had identified and coded by March 1, 2012. That report also includes a description of 12 “group exonerations” – sets of cases in which corrupt police officers systematically framed innocent defendants for non-existent crimes, mostly possession of illegal drugs or guns. Those group exonerations included at least 1,100 additional exonerated criminal defendants who are not listed in the Registry itself. This is our fourth report summarizing all of the cases in the Registry at a particular point in time. In April 2013 we released a 2012 Update that described the status of the Registry as of the end of 2012; in February 2014 we released Exonerations in 2013 which included a description of the status of the Registry as of the end of 2013.1 This report fills the same function for the first 1,600 exonerations in the Registry, those posted as of May 18, 2015. We plan to continue to issue these reports in years to come. 1 In January 2015 we released a report entitled Exonerations in 2014, but it was limited to a description of known exonerations that occurred in calendar year 2014. NATIONAL REGISTRY OF EXONERATIONS UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LAW SCHOOL ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN 48109 2. The First 1,600 Exonerations in the Registry A. Who's Been Exonerated, and by What Process Of the 1,600 individual exonerations from January 1989 through May 18, 2015: • 91% were men (1,461/1,600) and 9% were women (147/1,600).2 • By race: o 47% were black (750/1,600), o 40% were white (641/1,600), o 11% were Hispanic (181/1,600), and o 2% were Native American, Asian or Other (28/1,600). • 13% pled guilty (209/1,600) and the rest were convicted at trial, 79% by juries (1,262/1,600) and 7% by judges (114/1,600). In 1% (15/1,600), we don’t know whether the trial conviction was by a jury or judge. • 25% were cleared at least in part with the help of DNA evidence (398/1,600). • 75% were cleared without DNA evidence (1,202/1,600). • Almost all had been in prison for years; most for more than 7 years. • As a group, the defendants have spent more than 14,750 years in prison for crimes for which they should not have been convicted – an average of 9 years and 3 months each.3 As a procedural matter, these exonerations occurred in several ways. (Some defendants were exonerated more than once, in different ways – for example by a dismissal in 1998, followed by a pardon in 2003.): Pardons: In 112 cases, governors (or in some states, other government officers or bodies) issued pardons based on evidence of the defendants’ innocence, including 43 cases of defendants whose charges had previously been dismissed, and three who had been acquitted on retrial by a jury or a judge.4 Dismissals: In 1,240 cases, criminal charges were dismissed by courts, generally on motion by the prosecution, after new evidence of innocence emerged (this is not counting dismissals in which the defendant was later pardoned or received a certificate of innocence). 2 Because of this lopsided distribution, we generally refer to exonerated defendants using male pronouns. 3 This is a conservative estimate of the direct consequences of these wrongful convictions. We have not counted time spent in custody before conviction. Nor have we included time spent on probation or parole, or time on bail or other forms of supervised release pending trial, retrial, or dismissal, even though all of these conditions involve restrictions on liberty – some mild, some onerous. 4 Under the Texas Wrongful Imprisonment Act (the “Tim Cole Act”), for example, an exonerated defendant may need a pardon even after a dismissal or an acquittal in order to be eligible for compensation for wrongful incarceration. See TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REM. CODE ANN. § 103.001 (2011). P AGE | 2 NATIONAL REGISTRY OF EXONERATIONS UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LAW SCHOOL ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN 48109 Acquittals: In 201 cases, the defendants whose convictions were vacated on review were acquitted on retrial on the basis of newly presented evidence of innocence, mostly by juries (181 cases), occasionally by judges (20 cases). Certificates of Innocence: In a small but growing number of cases – 49 to date – courts have issued “certificates of innocence,” “declarations of wrongful imprisonment,” or similar judgments of innocence.5 (In one case, the defendant also received an executive pardon.) Posthumous Exonerations: Thirteen defendants received posthumous exonerations; three of them also received judicial declarations of innocence, and one of those three received an executive pardon as well. Overall, 32% of known exonerations in the United States since 1989 included cooperation by police or prosecutors or both (515/1,600). As we have mentioned in previous reports, the number and proportion of such cases appears to be increasing over time.6 B. Exonerations by Crime The great majority of known exonerations in the first 1,600 exonerations are homicide cases— 44% (708/1,600)—and sexual assault cases—28% (449/1,600) (including both child sex abuse and adult sexual assaults). But the proportion of exonerations in cases that do not involve homicide, rape or child sex abuse continues to climb as we learn about more exonerations. It was 4% in the most comprehensive national report on exonerations published before the advent of the Registry,7 in 2005; 17% in the Exoneration Report; and 28% in this report. See Table 1 for a complete breakdown of exonerations by crime. 5 See, e.g., 735 ILL. COMP. STAT. 5/2-702 (2012) (detailing Illinois’s procedure for filing a petition for a certificate of innocence). 6 The numbers of exonerations by year and official cooperation are tabulated below: Exonerations with Prosecutor or Police Cooperation (PPC) Over Time ‘89 ‘90 ‘91 ‘92 ‘93 ‘94 ‘95 ‘96 ‘97 ‘98 ‘99 ‘00 ‘01 ‘02 ‘03 ‘04 ‘05 ‘06 ‘07 ‘08 ‘09 ‘10 ‘11 ‘12 '13 ‘14 '15 TOTAL PPC cases 8 7 8 10 8 7 11 9 7 7 7 20 20 21 17 15 18 19 22 26 25 21 14 52 36 68 33 516 All Cases 22 27 38 35 34 31 36 46 46 33 50 73 86 57 77 57 60 63 70 63 89 71 70 92 91 128 55 1,600 % PPC 36% 26% 21% 29% 24% 23% 31% 20% 15% 21% 14% 27% 23% 37% 22% 26% 30% 30% 31% 41% 28% 30% 20% 57% 40% 53% 60% 32% 7 Samuel R. Gross et al., Exonerations in the United States, 1989 Through 2003, 95 J. CRIM. L. & CRIMINOLOGY 523 at 529 Table 1 (2005). P AGE | 3 NATIONAL REGISTRY OF EXONERATIONS UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LAW SCHOOL ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN 48109 Table 1: Exonerations by Crime, 1989 – 2015 CRIME Homicide 44% (709) Murder 42% (675) Death sentences 7% (111) Other murder convictions 35% (564) Manslaughter 2% (34) Sexual Assaults 28% (449) Sexual assault on an adult 17% (272) Child sex abuse 11% (177) Other Crimes of Violence 13% (214) Robbery 6% (92) Attempted murder 2% (32) Assault 3% (51) Arson 0.8% (13) Kidnapping 0.6% (10) Child & Dependent Adult Abuse 0.4% (7) Other Violent Felonies 0.6% (9) Non-Violent Crimes 14% (228) Drug crimes 8% (126) Tax/Fraud/Bribery & Corruption 2% (27) Gun Possession 0.6% (10) Theft/Stolen Property 0.7% (11) Solicitation/Conspiracy 0.8% (13) Sex Offender Registration 0.4% (7) Burglary/Unlawful Entry 0.5% (8) Immigration 0.3% (4) Miscellaneous 0.1% (22) TOTAL 100% (1,600) P AGE | 4 NATIONAL REGISTRY OF EXONERATIONS UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LAW SCHOOL ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN 48109 C. Exonerations over Time There was a rapid increase in the annual total of known exonerations at the beginning of the period we cover, from 22 in 1989 to 73 in 2000. After that we see an uneven plateau through 2011, with annual totals from 57 through 86, followed by three record high years since 2012, including a sharp spike up to 128 in 2014. Since 1989, known exonerations have averaged 61 a year. From 2000 through 2014 the annual total has averaged 76. Since 2005, the number of DNA exonerations has been essentially flat, averaging 22 a year, while the number of non-DNA exonerations has nearly tripled and averages 58 a year. Overall, the proportion of exonerations based on DNA has dropped from 37% of those known on March 1, 2012 to 25% of the 1,600 exonerations in the Registry.8 See Figure 1.