We would be remiss if we didn’t highlight a number of important victories by members of the Innocence Network in the last few weeks:

• On May 16, Reggie Cole was exonerated and released from 16 years of wrongful incarceration after prosecutors dropped murder charges against him.   Congratulations to the California Innocence Project for this victory.  The evidence leading to the overturning of his conviction and release:

[Defense Counsel] uncovered exculpatory evidence, including the fact that the only witness who identified Cole at the crime scene fabricated his testimony. There was also evidence that the same witness may have actually been the shooter. Furthermore, none of the forensic evidence at the crime scene, including DNA and fingerprints, implicated Cole.

• Earlier this month, the Duke University’s Wrongful Convictions Clinic achieved the exoneration of Shawn Massey, who spent twelve years in prison for an armed robbery and kidnapping he didn’t commit.  Like the Cole case above, this was not a DNA case but a case where the students at the clinic successfully proved that Massey was misidentified.  This case is a good lesson on how simply proving a misidentification should be enough to get back into court and prove innocence.  From a local newspaper:

The case turned on the students proving that Massey, at the time of the crime, had short hair, not long hair styled in corn rows as the victim described. “We had to teach people about corn rows,” said Theresa Newman, the other co-director of the clinic. “We’re saying corn rows and they’re thinking braids. They didn’t understand that you need very long hair for corn rows, and Shawn’s hair was never long.”

• Just this week, The Maryland Innocence Project won a hard fought case involving faulty Gun Shot Residue evidence.  Tyrone Jones was misidentified as the shooter in a 1998 Baltimore murder.  The jury acquitted him of murder but convicted him of conspiracy.  The judge, recognizing the dubious nature of the prosecution, still sentenced him to life.  Jones won a new trial when a previously undisclosed report came out with a key witness statement that was different than that same witness’s identification of Jones as the perpetrator.  With the weakness in the GSR evidence and the crippled witness ID, the prosecution agreed to drop all charges.  For a fuller story, see the Baltimore Sun.  Congratulations to Michell Nethercott at the Maryland Public Defender’s Office for this great victory.

Related posts:

1. Friday roundup TalkLeft refers us to the New York Times article about a forthcoming NAS report on the sorry state of forensic...
2. 2008 Innocence Network Conference – San Jose, CA Pictured: (from right to left) Florida Exonerees Alan Crotzer, Wilton Dedge, Larry Bostic, Chad Heins, IPF Executive Director Seth Miller,...
3. New Innocence-Related Book Our friends at the Innocence Project of Texas let us know about a new book that just came out called...
4. Timothy Cole exonerated posthumously Timothy Cole was convicted of rape in 1985 and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He died there of an...
5. Press Conference Regarding Derrick Williams’ Innocence Once again, IPF attorneys Seth Miller and Melissa Montle are onto a wrongful conviction.  DNA test results proving the innocence...
6. Late May Innocence Commission Roundup There has been a lot of action in the media related to the prospect of an Actual Innocence Commission in...