Michael Hanline, California’s longest-serving wrongfully convicted inmate, was released from Ventura County Superior Court on November 24th after serving 36 years behind bars for a wrongful murder conviction. In 1978, Ventura resident J.T. McGarry, a friend and associate of Hanline,…
Los Angeles county resident Susan Mellen, 59, was recently exonerated after spending 17 years in prison for a wrongful murder conviction. Based solely on the false testimony of a woman with an extensive history of giving false information to law…
David McCallum and the late William Stuckey, who were just 16 years old when they were wrongfully convicted of murder and kidnapping in 1986, had their convictions vacated Wednesday by a Brooklyn judge. Although initially during videotaped interviews each suspect…
U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen Jr.’s Office in Washington, D.C. recently founded the first federal unit in the nation to review and investigate wrongful conviction cases. The Conviction Integrity Unit was established after federal prosecutors in Washington examined evidence in five…
The National Academy of Sciences published a breakthrough report Thursday evaluating scientific research on memory and eyewitness identification. As eyewitness misidentification is one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions in the United States, the report recommends best practices to…
Governor Brown recently approved compensation to Northern California Innocence Project clients Franky Carrillo Jr. and Johnny Williams for their decades of wrongful imprisonment. This came after approval by the Legislature and the California Victim Compensation and Government Claims Board’s recommendation…
The National Institute of Justice released a report today which explores the feasibility of using a learning-from-error model in criminal justice. The report, Mending Justice: Sentinel Events Reviews, draws on lessons from the medical and aviation fields and offers perspectives on using…
California Senate Bill 1058, which would help exonerate innocent men and women who have been wrongfully convicted of crimes, is headed to Governor Jerry Brown’s desk. Authored by Senator Mark Leno, the legislation would allow a judge to overturn a wrongful…
The Center for Prosecutor Integrity (CPI) released a proposed bill today that would require federal prosecutors to employ an open-file policy which would provide defense attorneys full access to all evidence pertinent to the case. Today under the Brady requirement,…
Martin Tankleff, 42, who was wrongfully convicted for the murders of his parents and released in 2007, graduated from law school on May 25. Tankleff served 17 years of a 50 years to life sentence before an appeals court overturned…
