Wrongful Convictions

WIFR OCKFORD, Ill. (WIFR) — John Horton, a Rockford man who spent more than 20 years in prison before he was exonerated​, received his certificate of innocence. Judge Joseph McGraw granted the certificate of innocence Monday afternoon, according to a representative from the Exoneration Project. “I thought that once I got exonerated that there was nothing that would top that,” Horton said. …

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Five years after Ryan Ferguson walked out of prison after winning a lengthy court battle for his freedom, Charles Erickson is now asking for his.  Erickson, 34, has filed a petition in Pike County, where his prison is located, that alleges Boone County prosecutors and Columbia police coerced him into confessing to the murder of Columbia Tribune sports editor …

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – On his last day as governor, Eric Greitens commuted sentences and issued pardons in what he said is the ability to make wrong things right. Our news cameras were there when Rodney Lincoln was released from prison after spending more than three decades behind bars for a crime he said he did not commit. Lincoln, 73, said …

This article was originally published in the Injustice Anywhere 2018 Spring Newsletter. By Sue Gless Thorne David Thorne was wrongfully convicted in January, 2000 in the death of Yvonne Layne.  David was accused and convicted of hiring Joseph Wilkes, a teenaged friend, to murder his former girlfriend.  David has always maintained his innocence.   Joseph Wilkes recanted his confession. Once David’s appeals …

According to the National Registry of Exonerations, courts in the United States overturned 139 wrongful convictions in 2017. Sixty percent of the exonerations in 2017 were a result of official misconduct. That is the highest number of convictions overturned because of misconduct ever to be documented in a calendar year. It is disturbing to know that honesty and integrity could …

  In the next legal step for Amanda Knox, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), on a date currently unknown, will issue a judgment in the case of Amanda Marie Knox v. Italy. Amanda Knox and her then boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, in a series of trials were convicted, acquitted, convicted, and then finally and definitively acquitted March 27, 2015 …