“It’s no exaggeration to say hundreds if not thousands of parents and caregivers are in prison in cases where no crime occurred,” says a spokesperson for the Innocence Project. Robert Roberson may be one of them. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 2003 after...
Criminal Appeals
A forensic analyst’s exaggerated testimony leads to new trial
A Colorado man who has insisted on his innocence for 30 years will get a new trial because the forensic analyst’s testimony in his trial is no longer supported by scientific evidence. In order for someone to offer an expert opinion in court, the judge must be...
Is it better for the guilty to go free than to risk a wrongful incarceration?
One of the most well-known and frequently quoted legal maxims is this: it is “better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” That was written by Sir William Blackstone in 1765, but it is far from the first or only expression of the idea....
Federal judge holds a federal sex offender rule unconstitutional
A federal judge in California has found a key part of the federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) to be unconstitutional. SORNA makes it a federal crime when a sex offender fails to register and then travels outside their state. People convicted...
Supreme Court to decide if you can be punished after an acquittal
This may come as a shock. Being acquitted of a crime doesn’t mean you can’t be punished for committing it. People can and do get punished for crimes they got acquitted of committing. It happens when a person is charged with more than one crime. If they are acquitted...
Texas appeals court: common sex crime recidivism statistic is wrong
How likely is it that someone who committed a violent sex offense and murder at 18 will commit another one? It may be impossible to say. What we do know is that there is no evidence the likelihood is 80%, as was claimed by the prosecution in one 2006 Texas case. In...
A Texas death row inmate was convicted on a ‘false’ DNA test
Can DNA evidence be wrong? You bet. Although it is a sophisticated science, it is still performed by human beings. Sometimes, people make mistakes – and some people make more mistakes than others. At issue is a Texas crime lab that “so consistently and egregiously...
Richard Glossip didn’t do it and we know who did. Why is he on death row?
In January 1997, Justin Sneed murdered an Oklahoma motel owner named Barry Van Treese. He has admitted as much. In exchange for more favorable treatment, Sneed agreed to implicate and testify against Richard Glossip, the motel’s manager. The prosecution’s theory was...
Wisconsin Supreme Court: sex trafficking is a defense for murder
If someone is trafficked sexually and, as a result of that, kills their trafficker, they may be innocent under Wisconsin law, according to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The initial question is whether the sex-trafficking victim committed the homicide as a direct result...
Why is discredited forensic science still being used as evidence?
In 2009, a committee of the prestigious National Research Council (NRC) published a report for Congress that shocked the entire criminal justice system. Congress had asked the NRC to evaluate the scientific underpinnings of commonly used forensic evidence and suggest...