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DISTURBING FACTS ABOUT WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS

Melanson Law Office P.C. March 30, 2014

  • The very first wrongful imprisonment case wasn’t tried until 1989. Since then, 35 states have had wrongful conviction cases successfully tried.

  • Of the over 300 wrongful conviction cases tried, 18 of the individuals were serving time on death row, and would have been actually put to death were it not for their exonerations.

  • The wrongfully convicted spent an average time of 13.6 years in jail/prison, totaling up to over 4,000 years total spent behind bars.

  • The wrongfully convicted are an average of 27 years old.

  • DNA testing has led to not only previously convicted being exonerated and released, but also to protecting innocent individuals from serving time in the first place. Tens of thousands of cases have ended with the prosecution’s main suspect being proven completely innocent by DNA.

  • In ¼ of all the wrongful conviction cases, incriminating or false statements/confessions were the cause of imprisonment. In roughly 1/10 cases, the individuals had actually plead guilty to charges.

  • The most common thing leading to false imprisonment is Eyewitness Misidentification Testimony.

  • In roughly half of the 300 cases, the actual suspects were later found and arrested.