Dean Gillispie Wins $45 Million for Wrongful Conviction

Posted on December 21, 2022 by | 4 comments

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Ohio man wins $45 million in lawsuit after being wrongfully imprisoned for 20 years

LAURA A. BISCHOFF

November 22, 2022, 10:56 AM

Ohio man wins $45 million in lawsuit after being wrongfully imprisoned for 20 years

COLUMBUS, Ohio – An Ohio man won $45 million in a civil lawsuit against a police department and detective whose actions led to his wrongful conviction and more than 20 years behind bars.

Dean Gillispie sued Miami Township police and former detective Scott Moore for suppressing evidence and tainting eyewitness identifications in the 1991 rape and kidnapping case against Gillispie.

Gillispie was convicted in 1991 in Montgomery County and released from prison in 2011. The Ohio Innocence Project at the University of Cincinnati law school, former Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro and Dean’s mother, Juana Gillispie, worked to free him and clear his name.

Today, Gillispie is 57, and lives in Fairborn, a suburb of Dayton.

“The horror inflicted on Dean and his family and community is hard to wrap your mind around,” Ohio Innocence Project Director Mark Godsey said. “The way the authorities pushed through a conviction and then fought back and refused to admit a mistake was so disappointing. Nothing can repay Dean for the horror.”

He added: “The jury’s verdict sends a strong message that those in power need to change the way they do things.”

“Justice prevailed in this case, although it took a long, long, long time for that to occur,” said Petro, who co-authored a book with his wife Nancy about wrongful convictions.

David Owens, whose firm Loevy & Loevy represents wrongfully convicted clients and represented Gillispie, said they believe $45 million sets an Ohio record.

It is unclear if Miami Township or Moore will seek to appeal the case or when Gillispie might receive payment.

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The National Registry of Exonerations Releases Grim, Eye-Opening Report

Posted on June 14, 2021 by | 1 comment

This month our nation exceeded 25,000 years lost to wrongful convictions. The human suffering associated with the wrongful conviction and imprisonment of 2,795 innocent people is incalculable. Without the research and reporting of the National Registry of Exonerations (NRE), we likely would not know of or comprehend the truth or implications of this horrific milestone.

The report, “25,000 Years Lost to Wrongful Convictions” released today quantifies the reality of a justice system making its most egregious error: convicting an innocent person. The NRE defines an exoneree as a “person who was convicted of a crime and later officially declared innocent of that crime, or relieved of all legal consequences of the conviction because evidence of innocence that was not presented at trial required reconsideration of the case.”

The NRE has focused on exonerations since 1989. Here are a few highlights from the report:

• On average, each exoneree spent more than 8 years and 11 months in prison before release. Black exonerees spent 10.4 years in prison on average, whereas white exonerees spent an average of 7.5 years. Averages alone do not immediately reveal, for example, that 183 people spent 25 years or more in prison before they were exonerated of crimes they did not commit.

• Innocent Black defendants served a majority of the prison time, 14,525 of the 25,004 years at the writing of the report.

• Governments have paid more than $2.9 billion in compensation, and yet more than half of the exonerated have received nothing.

As with the NRE’s research on racial identification among the wrongly convicted, the work of reporting and studying every known exoneration in the United States since 1989, has shined light on injustices that can accompany wrongful conviction. 

Racial and economic injustice shows up in exoneration research. Ronnie Long, convicted of a 1976 rape he didn’t commit in North Carolina, spent nearly 44 years in prison before his exoneration in 2020. The report notes, as the NRE does in every exoneration, what contributed to his wrongful conviction. In Mr. Long’s case, the contributors were “official misconduct, mistaken eyewitness testimony, perjury, and false forensic evidence.”

The injustice of excessive sentencing is also revealed in exonerations. Lawrence Martin spent nearly 19 years in prison for the non-violent “crime” of possession of a knife with a locking blade. Sentenced under California’s “Three Strikes” law, he got a life sentence for possessing this knife. According to the report, the California Supreme Court “ruled that police and prosecutors were applying an overly broad definition of a locking blade. In effect, Martin had committed no crime at all.” He was exonerated of this non-crime in 2020. 

The injustice of not being compensated for the loss of freedom, opportunity, reputation, pursuit of happiness, etc. due to the state’s error or misconduct is also addressed in the report, which references the work of Professor Jeffrey Gutman of the George Washington University Law School. Professor Gutman has conducted a comprehensive study of the compensation received by those in the exoneration registry.

The number of years lost to wrongful convictions is staggering but, in fact, an understatement. The report stresses that this calculation refers to only those exonerations we know about. ”The vast majority of false convictions go uncorrected and therefore are never counted.” The milestone does not include large group exonerations prompted by evidence of systemic official misconduct, nor the time spent in custody before trial.

In addition to including five noteworthy cases, the report concludes by noting the continuing trend of the establishment of conviction integrity units (CIUs), often in prosecutors’ offices, that are tasked with reviewing and reinvestigating case with credible claims of innocence. There are now 85 CIUs, mostly in large cities but also now statewide in six states. 

The report notes that since the death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, “our criminal justice system has been the focus of intense — and well-deserved — scrutiny,” concluding that reducing wrongful convictions, correcting the state’s past wrongs, and recognizing the state’s responsibilities to the wrongfully convicted both financially and in other support, are important components of reform efforts.

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Prosecutorial and Police Misconduct – A Continuing Travesty

Posted on February 16, 2021 by | 3 comments

Prosecutorial and police misconduct – we’ve been preaching about those things  on this site for a long time now, and there doesn’t appear to be an end in site – at least not yet.

David Leonhardt of the New York Times just wrote a very illuminating article on this subject, and I append it for you here:

February 16, 2021

Good morning. We look at two men who spent decades behind bars for crimes they didn’t commit.

‘No consequences’
Curtis Flowers’s day typically began around 4:30 a.m., when a prison guard slid a breakfast tray into his cell. The tray often included a biscuit, potatoes, oatmeal or grits — “a bunch of starch,” as Flowers said to me recently, with a quiet laugh.
Sometime after 8 a.m., the guards led him from his cell to a small outdoor pen where he was permitted to exercise, look up at the sky and talk to other death-row inmates in nearby pens. The pen was large enough for him to take three steps in one direction and two steps in another. “Walking in circles, you get dizzy real quick,” Flowers said.
After an hour in the pen — sometimes less — he returned to his cell for the rest of the day. There, he read books, wrote letters, watched television and talked with the guards or fellow prisoners through the bars.
Flowers lived like this for more than 20 years, on death row in Mississippi — despite there being no good evidence that he committed the crime, a 1996 quadruple murder in a furniture store, for which he was convicted.
He was a victim of prosecutor misconduct. A local district attorney, Doug Evans, convicted Flowers on weak evidence that later fell apart: To this day, no witness or physical evidence even puts Flowers at the scene of the crime. The U.S. Supreme Court threw out his conviction in 2019, citing Evans’s blocking of Black jurors. Last year, the state of Mississippi dropped all charges.
When I spoke to Flowers by Zoom recently, I was awed by his grace. He has spent nearly half his life behind bars, and in 2018 was denied a request to attend his mother’s funeral, but he conveys a calm cheerfulness. “Just doing little things to make me happy,” he said, like bass fishing.
Curtis FlowersDavid Doobinin
Still, there was one subject that sparked passion in him: the consequences — or lack thereof — for Evans, as well as for some of his friends still locked up in Parchman Farm prison. Flowers told me that while he believed many people at Parchman were guilty, others are there because of Evans’s misconduct. “It’s terrible,” Flowers said.
Yet Evans remains the top prosecutor for seven Mississippi counties. He “has faced no adverse consequences for his handling of the case,” as Parker Yesko — a member of the “In the Dark” podcast team that exposed the holes in the case — has written.

What would change look like?
In recent years, a movement known as criminal justice reform has sprung up, supported by both conservatives and progressives. Its biggest goal is reducing the number of Americans behind bars — which is currently above two million, giving the U.S. the world’s highest incarceration rate. Another goal is to introduce more accountability for prosecutors and detectives found to have committed misconduct, creating incentives to avoid unjust convictions.
“Prosecutors can misbehave with impunity, facing virtually no consequences even when a judge says they have committed substantive misconduct,” Shaila Dewan, a Times reporter covering criminal justice, told me.
My colleague Jan Ransom has published a gripping account of another case of potential misconduct. It takes place in the Bronx and involves Huwe Burton, whose mother was stabbed to death in 1989, when he was 16. Three detectives coaxed a false confession out of him, using a mix of threats and lies, and he spent almost 20 years in prison. A judge has since exonerated him.
Huwe BurtonElias Williams for The New York Times
Darcel Clark, the Bronx district attorney, is now conducting an inquiry into whether the three detectives’ tactics tainted 31 other homicide cases. The detectives have denied wrongdoing, and Clark has suggested they were following “standard procedure” at the time.
Still, Jan writes, “the inquiry highlights how a new generation of prosecutors in New York and elsewhere is delving deeply into whether deceptive police interrogation tactics might have warped the criminal justice system.” In the Bronx and some other places, prosecutors have formed units to review old cases and tried to bar problematic police officers from testifying.
Prosecutors and police officers have tough jobs and sometimes make honest mistakes, as Nina Morrison of the Innocence Project, which helped free Burton, has noted. But outright misconduct is more frequent than many people realize. It played a role in more than half of the 2,400 exonerations documented nationwide over the last three decades. “For Black men wrongly convicted of murder, the proportion was 78 percent,” Jan writes.
Toward the end of my conversation with Flowers, I asked him what he thought should happen to prosecutors like Evans who have committed misconduct. Flowers replied that they should be subject to the same punishment they have inflicted on others. “It sucks to be behind bars,” he said, “and I don’t think he would want to sit back there.”
For more on Flowers: You can watch a “60 Minutes” segment or listen to “In the Dark,” both of which include interviews with both Evans and Flowers.
For more on Burton: I recommend taking a few minutes to read Jan Ransom’s story.

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The National Registry of Exonerations Releases 2019 Annual Report with Implications Heightened by COVID-19 Concerns

Posted on March 31, 2020 by | Leave a comment

The National Registry of Exonerations 2019 Annual Report, a must-read for advocates of criminal justice reform, offers important insights on wrongful conviction at a particularly distressful time for our nation and the incarcerated.

“Right now, there are likely thousands of innocent people in U.S. jails and prisons as a result of wrongful convictions. It is hard to imagine the horror of being incarcerated today – innocent or guilty – as the COVID-19 virus is spreading through these closed spaces and threatening lives,” said Barbara O’Brien, the report’s author, who is law professor at Michigan State University and editor of the National Registry.

Read the report here.

Key takeaways:

How many? The Registry recorded 143 exonerations achieved in 2019. The total of known exonerations from 1989 until year-end 2019 was 2,556.

How many years stolen? Last year set a sobering new record in the number of years wrongfully convicted persons served for crimes they did not commit before they were exonerated and released: on average 13.3 years. In total, 1,908 years were stolen from the year’s exonerees, which brought the total years lost since 1989 to more than 22,000 years. The year recorded an unusual number of cases in which innocent people served sentences of more than 30 years. Ten of the Registry’s 52 cases involving serving more than 30 years in prison were added in 2019.

What crimes were involved? Of the 143 exonerations, 117 were of violent crimes, including homicide (76 cases), child sex abuse (10), and sexual assault on adults (11). Three of those wrongfully convicted of homicide had been sentenced to death.

In 50 exonerations, no crime was actually committed.

Why were innocent people convicted of crimes they didn’t commit? The top three contributors to wrongful conviction in the 2019 exonerations were perjury or false accusation (contributed in 101 of the 143 cases); official misconduct (93); and mistaken witness identification (48). Defendants offered guilty pleas in 34 exonerations and gave false confessions in 24 cases.

Who helped achieve the year’s exonerations? Conviction Integrity Units (CIU’s) or Innocence Projects prompted exonerations in 87 of the year’s exonerations. The important trend of the increasing establishment of Conviction Integrity Units within prosecutorial offices continued in 2019. The year also witnessed a promising new development — attorneys general in Michigan and New Jersey launched statewide CIUs. (Pennsylvania’s attorney general also launched one in early 2020.)

The annual report provides more than important numbers and analysis that can inform reforms and advances. It also tells the extraordinary stories of exonerees and unthinkable injustice. These horrific cases should motivate Americans to continue all efforts that will reduce wrongful conviction and, armed with this important research, dispel the arguments of those who resist meaningful reforms. 

The National Registry of Exonerations — a joint project of the University of California Irvine Newkirk Center for Science & Society, the University of Michigan Law School, and the Michigan State University College of Law — once again has clarified wrongful conviction with the inescapable conclusion that we can and must advance toward a more accurate and just criminal justice system. 

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Posted in Commissions/Innocence Commissions/Governmental Case Review Agencies, Conviction Integrity Units, Editorials/Opinion, Exonerations, Eyewitness identification, False confessions, Prosecutorial conduct (good and bad), Reforming/Improving the system, Scholarship, wrongful conviction

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Ohio Chief Justice Convenes Wrongful Conviction Task Force

Posted on February 15, 2020 by | 7 comments

One small step.

https://www.wcpo.com/news/crime/ohio-chief-justice-convenes-wrongful-conviction-task-force

 

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New exoneree Charles Jackson preps for life-saving mission

Posted on September 7, 2019 by | Leave a comment

Absolved finally of taking a life, Charles Jackson now has his sights set on saving one.

Charles received the life-changing news at the end of last week that prosecutors in Cuyahoga County had finally decided to dismiss the charges against him for a 1991 double-shooting that left a man dead  – a crime for which he had already wrongfully served 27 years in prison.

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Charles Jackson this summer with OIP staff attorney Mallorie Thomas.

Last November, a judge in Cleveland overturned his conviction, giving him back his freedom but with the prospect looming that the state could decide to try him again.

The decision to dismiss the charges means that a retrial scheduled to convene this month isn’t going to happen, and that Charles officially joins the ranks of 27 other exonerees freed through the work of the Ohio Innocence Project, based in the University of Cincinnati College of Law.

(He was officially added to the National Registry of Exonerations on Wednesday. You can read his profile with full details of his case at http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=5605)

It also means he can travel to Jacksonville, Fla., where his nephew, Houston Foster, is now residing.

Houston Foster is suffering with advanced kidney disease, to the point he can no longer work nor travel. After testing this spring following his release, Charles turned out to be a match for donating the kidney that Houston needs.

Now he’s making plans for an extended trip to Florida for the transplant of one of his kidneys to Houston. Continue reading →

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Genetic DNA analysis prompts likely exoneration in Idaho murder case

Posted on July 13, 2019 by | 1 comment

Christopher Tapp, who spent two decades behind bars for the 1996 rape and murder of Idaho Falls resident, Angie Dodge, is expected to be exonerated this week. As reported in the Post Register, unreliable evidence — a coerced confession and testimony from a witness who later recanted and claimed police pressured her — prompted the jury’s guilty verdict in 1997. But Tapp’s nightmare is expected to end in a hearing before Seventh District Judge Alan Stephens on Wednesday, July 17, thanks to a newer use of DNA, genetic DNA analysis.

In prison Tapp maintained his innocence — the crime scene DNA did not match him — and unsuccessfully petitioned the courts five times for post-conviction relief. His recent sixth petition is supported by a filing from Bonneville County Prosecuting Attorney Daniel Clark, who has asked that Tapp’s conviction be vacated, opining, “There exists clear and convincing evidence that (Tapp) was convicted of a crime he did not commit.”

What caused this reversal of official response to Tapp’s petitions for relief? Genetic DNA analysis led to the identification of Angie Dodge’s across-the-street neighbor, Brian Leigh Dripps, who admitted he committed the crime, acted alone, and had never met Christopher Tapp.

A related news report by Local News 8 ABC reported that Idaho Falls Police Chief Bryce Johnson said genetic investigation led to someone in the Dripps family tree. Utilizing crime scene DNA, a genealogist identified three people in the Dripps family related to the suspect on a genealogy website. Police surveillance enabled retrieval and analysis of a discarded cigarette butt to confirm the DNA match with Brian Dripps. He has been charged with the crime.

Expanded use of DNA in genetic analysis resulting in the identification of the perpetrator is noteworthy in this tragic wrongful conviction case. Additionally, Tapp had agreed in 2017 to a deal with prosecutors in which he would be released from prison on time served with the rape charge dropped, but with the onerous murder conviction remaining on his record. On Wednesday along with Tapp’s expected exoneration, this later travesty of justice will also be rectified.

The Idaho Innocence Project is to be commended for pursuing justice in this case for a decade.

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Posted in Exonerations, False confessions, forensic science, New Evidence, Post-conviction relief, wrongful conviction

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OIP Fellows this summer feature international flavor

Posted on July 9, 2019 by | Leave a comment

If you’ve followed the Ohio Innocence Project for an extended period of time, you are probably aware that summer is one of the busiest periods around the OIP offices.

The break between the end of spring semester in May and the beginning of fall semester in August is when students selected as OIP Fellows go through their most intensive period of working on cases that could be candidates for exoneration.

The 22 UC law students who are in this year’s cohort of Fellows have been joined by a group of international law students eager to gain exposure to the innocence movement in the United States. Continue reading →

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‘Blind Injustice’ set to premiere to sold-out run at Cincinnati Opera

Posted on July 9, 2019 by | 1 comment

“Very rarely in life are we given a gift as precious as this one. It’s humbling to tell a story from people who have suffered so much, rallied so much and given us so much to believe in, in terms of what they are capable of in the best sense of survival.”

Survival. Perseverance. Justice. Renewal.

It sounds like the stuff of a screenplay. In this case, though, it’s opera, which introduces the creative possibilities of storytelling using music, story and song. The finished product, “Blind Injustice,” makes its world premiere this month. The much-anticipated production by the Cincinnati Opera in Music Hall’s Wilks Studio will have five performances between July 22-27, and all are sold out.

(A special preview event on July 17 at Allen Temple A.M.E. Church in Roselawn will feature several excerpts from the opera, along with a discussion with exonerees whose stories are part of the production and the creative team behind “Blind Injustice.” The July 17 event is free, but tickets must be reserved in advance.)

The opera is an adaptation from a book written by Ohio Innocence Project co-founder and director Mark Godsey. It explores the psychology behind wrongful convictions while also drawing on specific experiences from OIP exonerees.

For the creative team charged with developing the opera, it has been a challenging and emotional process. Continue reading →

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Amanda Knox Returns to Italy.

Posted on June 15, 2019 by | 4 comments

Since her initial acquittal in Italy and return to the US in 2011, Amanda Knox has never returned to Italy. She has remained busy getting along with her life, writing, and in supporting movements dedicated to the pursuit of true justice.    Until now.

We wrote about the facts of her case on this blog in 2012 here.

She returned to Italy this past week to speak at the Festival on Criminal Justice sponsored by the Italy Innocence Project in Modena, Italy.

See the CNN story about her return here.

 

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Posted in Events, Junk science, Life after exoneration, Reforming/Improving the system, wrongful conviction, Wrongfully Convicted Women

Annual Exonerations Report: A record number of years lost by those exonerated in 2018

Posted on April 9, 2019 by | 1 comment

A record 1,639 years were lost in prison by those wrongly convicted and exonerated in 2018, according to “Exonerations in 2018,” the annual report of The National Registry of Exonerations (NRE). The 151 persons exonerated in 2018 spent an average of 10.9 years wrongly incarcerated before exoneration. The report highlights milestones, trends, and the year’s specific exoneration takeaways.

For example, in September 2018 the total number of years lost by exonerees exceeded the milestone of 20,000. As of today, that number is 21,095 lost years for the 2,418 persons known to have been exonerated since 1989.

One highlight of 2018 was an extraordinary 31 defendants exonerated as a result of the scandal in Chicago stemming from an era of police corruption led by Sergeant Ronald Watts in which defendants were framed by police on drug and weapons charges. Reinvestigation of these cases — 30 of which were drug crimes — prompted the exonerations.

The Registry notes contributors to wrongful conviction in each case of exoneration. The 31 Chicago cases were included in at least 107 cases involving official misconduct, a Continue reading →

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Posted in Compensation/Exoneree compensation, Conviction Integrity Units, Exonerations, Eyewitness identification, False confessions, Police conduct (good and bad), Post-conviction relief, Prosecutorial conduct (good and bad), Reforming/Improving the system, Scholarship, wrongful conviction

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Two Florida Men Freed After 42 Years in Prison for a Murder They Didn’t Commit

Posted on March 29, 2019 by | 4 comments

Clifford Williams and Hubert Myers were convicted of murdering a woman while they were at a party in Jacksonville, Florida. Two women were shot in a nearby apartment, one of them fatally. The men were quickly arrested, convicted and sentenced to life in prison after a 2-day trial.

The state of Florida has recently dropped all charges and freed them.

See the CNN story here:  https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/29/us/florida-wrongful-imprisonment-42-years-murder/index.html

 

 

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Wrongfully Convicted; “Beatrice Six” Awarded $28.1 million

Posted on March 6, 2019 by | 4 comments

“Six people were convicted of a murder they didn’t even remember. Now a county owes them $28 million.”

Six people convicted of brutally raping and killing an elderly woman,  but none of them had any memory of the crime . . . because they were innocent.

And if that’s not bad enough, here’s the really scary part – the police actually convinced three of them that they were guilty!

See the story from the Washington Post:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/03/06/six-people-were-convicted-murder-they-didnt-even-remember-now-county-owes-them-million/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.51ac6b22a0a1

 

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Posted in Compensation/Exoneree compensation, Exonerations, False confessions, Junk science, Police conduct (good and bad), Post-conviction relief, Prosecutorial conduct (good and bad), wrongful conviction

Ohio Gov. Kasich signs landmark law on compensation for wrongful conviction

Posted on December 21, 2018 by | 1 comment

A landmark moment for wrongfully convicted Ohioans arrived today, promising a measure of justice and smoother integration back into society, when Ohio Gov. John Kasich signed into law House Bill 411.

The new law opens the door for a number of exonerees to receive financial compensation for the years they spent wrongfully imprisoned, and certain hurdles that in the past have thrown the question of compensation being received into question have now been removed from the process.

ohio capital newsletter

The Ohio Statehouse

“Protecting the rights and freedom of our citizens is my top priority, and when those rights are violated we have a responsibility to take action,” said Rep. Emilia Strong Sykes (D-Akron), one of the sponsors of the bipartisan bill, along with Rep. Bill Seitz (R-Cincinnati).

“Thanks to this bipartisan effort, Ohioans who have been wrongfully imprisoned will soon have a better path forward to reclaim their lives and receive the justice they deserve,” Sykes added.

The bill was sponsored in the Ohio Senate by Sen. John Eklund (R-18th District) and Sen. Vernon Sykes (D-28th District).

The new law specifically addresses those cases where convictions were obtained despite what are known as Brady violations. Those are cases where it is ruled that the prosecution illegally withheld evidence that could point to the real perpetrators of the crime.

“The collaborative effort behind House Bill 411 led to a narrow but important piece of legislation that drew bipartisan support in both chambers of the Ohio Legislature,” said Pierce Reed, program director of the Ohio Innocence Project (OIP) and one of the most active advocates in helping the legislation to advance. “After more than a year of debate, the overwhelming majority of legislators recognized the impact of Brady violations on the lives of Ohioans and the need to provide eligibility for compensation to innocent men and women whose convictions were tainted by violations of their fundamental rights to a fair trial.” Continue reading →

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International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and Innocence Organizations to Educate Criminal Justice Stakeholders on Psychological Factors that Contribute to Wrongful Convictions

Posted on November 19, 2018 by | Leave a comment

New Video Series Supplements Trainings for Law Enforcement and Others Working in Criminal Justice

The International Association of Chiefs of Police is joining  the Innocence Project, the Ohio Innocence Project and other members of the Innocence Network to release a series of videos to educate law enforcement and criminal justice professionals about the psychological phenomena that can impede criminal investigations and prosecutions, and lead to wrongful convictions. The seven videos feature leading experts discussing how to recognize psychological factors, such as memory malleability and implicit bias, that affect investigations and prosecutions as well as highlighting some of the safeguards that can be employed to prevent wrongful convictions.  The videos are available at law.uc.edu/human-factors.html.

IACScreenshot_2018-11-19 Sherry Nakhaeizadeh FINAL_6a movP has been a leader in promoting reforms that reduce wrongful convictions, as far back as 2006 with the release of a key training on eyewitness identification, in 2010 and 2016 with the releases of model policies, in 2013 with the summit on wrongful convictions and in 2017 with the production of a roll call video series on eyewitness identification.

“Law enforcement officials are human and are susceptible to the same psychological phenomena that can adversely affect decision-making,” said Paul M. Cell, president of the IACP.  “We are excited to be partnering with innocence organizations to make these videos available because education and training are critical to ensuring that these phenomena don’t adversely affect investigations.”

The videos focus on human flaws that have been proven to contribute to wrongful conviction, and ere designed to complement trainings for stakeholders from all corners of the criminal justice community, from law enforcement to crime lab personnel to prosecutors and defense lawyers.

“While these videos were designed to be used in conjunction with more thorough trainings, we wanted to make them more broadly available online so they are accessible at all times to remind people working in criminal justice to be more aware of the psychological traps that can undermine even the most dedicated and diligent actors,” said Mark Godsey, director of the Rosenthal Institute for Justice/Ohio Innocence Project.Screenshot_2018-11-19 Jim Trainum FINAL_v6a mov(1)

Rebecca Brown, policy director of the Innocence Project which is affiliated with the Cardozo School of Law, added: “Presenting the psychological factors that contribute to human error in a neutral manner by experts with deep knowledge of the criminal justice system will hopefully encourage a dialogue among professionals, including police, prosecutors, forensic examiners, and defense lawyers, and encourage them to ask themselves and each other if any of these factors may be influencing their work.”

For online access to the videos and more information, visit law.uc.edu/human-factors.html.  Below is a short description of the seven videos:

Confirmation Bias – Dr. Sherry Nakhaeizadeh explains how people tend to interpret evidence in a way that confirms their assumptions and preconceptions.

Memory Malleability – Dr. Elizabeth Loftus discusses how memory is constructed and how it is susceptible to being manipulated by false information.

Eyewitness Misidentification – Dr. Jennifer Dysart explains how memory affects identification and how to prevent eyewitness misidentifications.

False Confessions – Dr. Saul Kassin explains how interrogation techniques can cause innocent people to falsely confess to crimes they didn’t commit.

Lie Detection and Demeanor Evidence – Dr. Par-Anders Granhag exposes the myth that it is possible to tell whether or not someone is being truthful from their physical ticks and mannerisms.

Tunnel Vision – Retired Detective Jim Trainum explains the harm of focusing on a single or limited police or prosecutorial theory and seeking only evidence that confirms that particular theory.

Implicit Bias – Professor L. Song Richardson explains how personal experiences shape our views and can result in unintentional bias.

For inquiries about further information on this project, contact:

Julia Lucivero, 212-364-5371, jlucivero@innocenceproject.org

Sarah Guy, 703-647-7226, guy@theiacp.org

Carey Hoffman, 513-289-1379, Ohio Innocence Project

 

 

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Posted in Eyewitness identification, False confessions, Forensic controls, forensic science, Junk science, Reforming/Improving the system, wrongful conviction

Lessons of Wrongful Convictions: A Parent/Child Perspective

Posted on November 4, 2018 by | 2 comments

(Editor’s note: The author, Carey Hoffman, is Director of Communications for the Ohio Innocence Project.)

Every parent aspires for the best for their child.

That was true for Rickey Jackson’s parents. It was also true for Harold Franks, the Cleveland salesman killed in 1975 that Jackson and two friends were wrongfully convicted of murdering.

Of course, it is just as true for myself and my wife with our two daughters.

rickey jackson release portrait

Rickey Jackson in 2014, moments after a court ordered his release after 39 years in prison.

That’s why I was pleased our youngest, Emily, a junior at Miami University, was going to have the opportunity to hear Rickey Jackson speak when he visited her campus in October as part of a program put on by the Miami chapter of OIP-u, one of seven chapters at Ohio universities that serve as undergraduate advocacy organizations affiliated with the Ohio Innocence Project.

The realities of four decades lost to injustice can become very hard to miss when their embodiment is sitting 15 feet away from you, telling you a story of a life’s journey that you’ll never forget. Continue reading →

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Posted in Exonerations, Eyewitness identification, incentivized witnesses, Life after exoneration, wrongful conviction

New 360-degree Video Experience Allows Viewers to Step Into the Shoes of the Wrongfully Convicted

Posted on October 2, 2018 by | Leave a comment

Only the people who have been through it can truly understand the experience of having been wrongfully convicted and sent to prison. But a new, 360-degree immersive video will allow viewers to gain greater understanding than ever before of what it is to “walk a mile in my shoes” when you are an exoneree who spent almost 40 years in prison.

That is the experience of Rickey Jackson of Cleveland, Ohio, who was exonerated in 2014. One of the longest-serving exonerees in U.S. history, the realities of his surreal, new post-prison life can be uniquely understood through the release of “Send Me Home,” a 360-degree video experience conceived and produced by Lonelyleap Film.

“Send Me Home” invites participants to take a journey in 360 degrees, as Rickey grants us entry into his private world, guiding us through time gone, family known and the spaces he lovingly embraces today. The 360-degree video transports participants into Rickey’s mindspace, urging them to reflect on the expanse of their own lives in relation to the time Rickey has lost.

Rickey was represented by the Ohio Innocence Project, which ultimately secured his release from a death sentence that began with a wrongful conviction in a 1975 murder case.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Exonerations, Film/Cinema, Life after exoneration, wrongful conviction

NBA Coaches Join Awareness Effort for Wrongful Conviction Day 2018

Posted on October 2, 2018 by | Leave a comment

Today, Oct. 2, is Wrongful Conviction Day — the annual international observance dedicated to ending wrongful convictions and highlighting the plight of those convicted of crimes they did not commit.

WCD_logoThis year, Wrongful Conviction Day is highlighting the role that racial bias plays in wrongful convictions and the efforts to fix the criminal justice system in its entirety. Created by the Innocence Network in 2014, Wrongful Conviction Day aims to raise awareness of the causes and remedies of wrongful conviction and to recognize the tremendous personal, social and emotional costs of wrongful conviction for innocent people and their families.

“Wrongful Conviction Day is not only part of a movement, it is also always a personal day for everyone who works on behalf of the Ohio Innocence Project,” says Mark Godsey, the OIP’s co-founder and director. Continue reading →

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Posted in Events, Exonerations, Wrongful Conviction Day

Ten years after: An exoneree success story

Posted on September 16, 2018 by | 2 comments

“Hello truth.”

That’s the phrase Robert McClendon will always be associated with. It was his reaction 10 years ago when DNA results were announced that conclusively cleared him of the rape charge that had cost him his freedom for the previous 18 years.

But, in this 10th anniversary year of that moment, Robert says they are not necessarily the words that stick out most in his mind from that day.

mcclendon o'brien

Robert McClendon and Ron O’Brien

It was an exchange with Columbus Dispatch reporter Mike Wagner, whose reporting plays prominently in Robert’s story, that remains most vivid to Robert.

Heading into the proceedings to announce the results of the DNA comparison, no one was telling Robert what the results showed.

“No one would say anything about it. My family was bewildered, they were stunned,” Robert recalls. “I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, the results must have come back inconclusive.’ All kind of things were going through my mind, and I will always remember this conversation with Mike Wagner.

“Mike knew I liked basketball, and he was a high school basketball player himself, so he had said, ‘If you ever get out, we’ll have to play a game of 1-on-1.’ So no one is telling me anything, and then Mike walks by and he says the words I’ll never forget, ‘You ready for that basketball game?’ “

That is how Robert McClendon learned his 18-year nightmare was drawing to a close.

McClendon, Wagner and others involved in his case – along with fellow Ohio Innocence Project (OIP) exonerees Dean Gillispie, Laurese Glover and Nancy Smith – revisited his journey to justice this week during a panel discussion, “Hello Truth, Ten Years of Freedom” in Robert’s hometown of Columbus.

Also participating were Columbus city council member Jaiza Page, who served as moderator, Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien, Judge Charles Schneider of the Franklin County Common Pleas Court, former Columbus Dispatch reporter Geoff Dutton and OIP Deputy Director Jennifer Paschen Bergeron.

Robert’s case was a true landmark moment for the innocence movement in Ohio. Continue reading →

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Posted in Access to DNA testing, Exonerations, Life after exoneration, Prosecutorial conduct (good and bad), wrongful conviction

NRE’s Newest Report: Years Lost, Human and Other Resources Squandered

Posted on September 11, 2018 by | 2 comments

The National Registry of Exonerations’ latest report reveals a staggering 20,080 years lost behind bars since 1989 by victims of wrongful conviction and, in an accompanying report, $2.2 billion in compensation paid to exonerees by governments, even though more than half of exonerees have never been compensated.  Radley Balko of The Washington Post provides this informative preview opinion of the soon-to-be-released report. Thanks to the National Registry of Exonerations for revealing indisputable data that continues to be a blaring, heartbreaking call for criminal justice reform.

 

 

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Posted in Compensation/Exoneree compensation, Editorials/Opinion, Exonerations