Sing Sing Correctional Facility is a maximum-security prison for men operated by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision in the village of Ossining, New York, United States. It is about 30 miles (48 km) north of Midtown Manhattan on the east bank of the Hudson River. It holds about 1,700 inmates and housed the execution chamber for the State of New York until the abolition of capital punishment in New York in 2007.
A miscarriage of justice occurs when an unfair outcome occurs in a criminal or civil proceeding, such as the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. Miscarriages are also known as wrongful convictions. Innocent people have sometimes ended up in prison for years before their conviction has eventually been overturned. They may be exonerated if new evidence comes to light or it is determined that the police or prosecutor committed some kind of misconduct at the original trial. In some jurisdictions this leads to the payment of compensation.
High Desert State Prison is a state prison in unincorporated Clark County, Nevada, near Indian Springs, northwest of Las Vegas. It is the largest institution of the Nevada Department of Corrections and the newest, having opened on September 1, 2000. It has a capacity of 4,176.
Steven Allan Avery is an American convicted murderer from Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, who had previously been wrongfully convicted in 1985 of sexual assault and attempted murder. After serving 18 years of a 32-year sentence, Avery was exonerated by DNA testing and released in 2003, only to be charged in another murder case two years later.
Martin H. Tankleff is an American man who was wrongly convicted of murdering his parents, Seymour and Arlene Tankleff, on September 7, 1988, when he was 17 years old. After serving almost 18 years of imprisonment, his conviction was vacated and he was released from prison in 2007. He is now an attorney.
The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town is a 2006 true crime book by John Grisham, his first nonfiction title. The book tells the story of Ronald 'Ron' Keith Williamson of Ada, Oklahoma, a former minor league baseball player who was wrongly convicted in 1988 of the rape and murder of Debra Sue Carter in Ada and was sentenced to death. After serving 11 years on death row, he was exonerated by DNA evidence and other material introduced by the Innocence Project and was released in 1999.
Gerald "Gary" McGivern was an American felon found guilty in 1967 of the armed robbery of a gas station in Pelham Manor, New York, United States, during which two police officers were wounded. McGivern was tried with his partner in the robbery, Charles Culhane, and was sentenced to ten to twenty years in state prison. On September 13, 1968, McGivern, Culhane and a third convict, Robert Bowerman, were being transported by two deputies, from Auburn State Prison to a court hearing in White Plains. During a rest stop along the New York State Thruway, a deputy's gun was seized in an attempted escape. During the struggle inside the police car, a deputy and Bowerman were shot to death.
Mule Creek State Prison (MCSP) is a California State Prison for men. It was opened in June 1987, and covers 866 acres (350 ha) located in Ione, California. The prison has a staff of 1,242 and an annual operating budget of $157 million.
Kent Leppink was a fisherman who was killed in Hope, Alaska, in May 1996. His former fiancée, Mechele Linehan, and former roommate, John Carlin, were convicted of murdering him in 2007, but the judgments were reversed on appeal. Carlin died in prison in 2008 and Alaska prosecutors ultimately decided against indicting Linehan a second time.
The Murder of Terry King occurred on November 26, 2001. Terry Lee King, a resident of Cantonment, Florida, U.S., was bludgeoned to death by his two children, 13-year old Derek and 12-year old Alex King.
Dewey Bozella is a former professional boxer who is known for being wrongfully imprisoned. Convicted in 1983 for the murder of an elderly woman, Bozella served 26 years in prison before his conviction was overturned in 2009 after being proved innocent.
The innocent prisoner's dilemma, or parole deal, is a detrimental effect of a legal system in which admission of guilt can result in reduced sentences or early parole. When an innocent person is wrongly convicted of a crime, legal systems which need the individual to admit guilt — as, for example, a prerequisite step leading to parole — punish an innocent person for their integrity, and reward a person lacking in integrity. There have been cases where innocent prisoners were given the choice between freedom, in exchange for claiming guilt, and remaining imprisoned and telling the truth. Individuals have died in prison rather than admit to crimes that they did not commit, including in the face of a plausible chance at release.
The Illinois Innocence Project, a member of the national Innocence Project network, is a non-profit legal organization that works to exonerate wrongfully convicted people and reform the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.
Ryan W. Ferguson is an American man who spent nearly 10 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of a 2001 murder in his hometown of Columbia, Missouri. At the time of the murder, Ferguson was a 17-year-old high-school student.
Barry Allan Beach is an American who was sentenced to 100 years in prison without parole in 1984 for the 1979 murder of Kimberly Nees in Poplar, Montana. During the years following his conviction, Beach gained support from influential state and national advocates who said his murder confession, the lynchpin of his conviction, was coerced. In 2015, his sentence was commuted to time served, plus ten years on probation.
Michael "Mike" Semanchik is the Executive Director of The Innocence Center (TIC) and former Managing Attorney at the California Innocence Project (CIP). As part of his work with CIP, he has been involved in many cases involving the exoneration of previously convicted prisoners, working closely with the organization's director, Justin Brooks, and also preparing petitions for many of CIP's clients. After working at CIP while still a law student at California Western School of Law, following graduation in 2010 he became an investigator and then a staff attorney there.
Alissa Leanne Bjerkhoel is an American litigation coordinator at the California Innocence Project (CIP), a law school clinic that investigates cases of factual innocence while training law students. Bjerkhoel was born in Truckee, California, and later graduated from California Western School of Law (CWSL) after previously obtaining a B.A. degree She has been an attorney with CIP since 2008. Bjerkhoel has served as counsel for CIP on numerous criminal cases, and achieved the legal exoneration of a number of convicted prisoners. Bjerkhoel serves as CIP's in-house DNA expert and also serves as a panel attorney with the nonprofit law firms Appellate Defenders, Inc. (ADI) and Sixth District Appellate Program (SDAP). She is a member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. Bjerkhoel has won a number of awards.
Jabbar Collins is an American man who served 16 years for a crime he did not commit. He was convicted of second-degree murder following the February 1994 death of Orthodox rabbi Abraham Pollack in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The 20-year-old Collins, who lived in a nearby housing project, was arrested and charged with the murder. In March 1995, he was sentenced by a jury to 34-years-to-life in prison, sixteen of which he served.
The Sing Sing Chronicles is an American documentary series directed and produced by Dawn Porter. It follows reporter Dan Slepian who forms a bond with Jon-Adrian Velazquez, formerly incarcerated at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, with the two embarking on a journey for justice.
