Innocence Project, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal organization that is committed to exonerating individuals who have been wrongly convicted, through the use of DNA testing and working to reform the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice. The group cites various studies estimating that in the United States between 1% and 10% of all prisoners are innocent. The Innocence Project was founded in 1992 by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld who gained national attention in the mid-1990s as part of the "Dream Team" of lawyers who formed part of the defense in the O. J. Simpson murder case.
David Milgaard was a Canadian man who was wrongfully convicted for the 1969 rape and murder of nursing student Gail Miller in Saskatoon and imprisoned for 23 years. He was eventually released and exonerated. Up until his death, he lived in Alberta and was employed as a community support worker. Milgaard was also a public speaker who advocated for the wrongfully convicted and for all prisoners' rights.
A miscarriage of justice occurs when a grossly 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.
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 eighteen years of a thirty-two-year sentence, Avery was exonerated by DNA testing and released in 2003, only to be charged with murder two years later.
Martin H. Tankleff is an American man who was wrongly convicted of murdering his wealthy 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.
Wrongful execution is a miscarriage of justice occurring when an innocent person is put to death by capital punishment. Cases of wrongful execution are cited as an argument by opponents of capital punishment, while proponents say that the argument of innocence concerns the credibility of the justice system as a whole and does not solely undermine the use of the death penalty.
Jason Flom is an American music industry executive, podcaster and philanthropist. He is the founder of Lava Records, and was previously the chairman of Atlantic Records and Virgin Records/Capitol Music Group. He is also an advocate for those who have allegedly been wrongfully convicted.
Connick v. Thompson, 563 U.S. 51 (2011), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court considered whether a prosecutor's office can be held liable for a single Brady violation by one of its members on the theory that the office provided inadequate training.
Centurion is a non-profit organization located in Princeton, New Jersey, with a mission to exonerate innocent individuals who have been wrongly convicted and sentenced to life sentences or death.
Michael Morton is an American who was wrongfully convicted in 1987 in a Williamson County, Texas court of the 1986 murder of his wife Christine Morton. He spent nearly 25 years in prison before he was exonerated by DNA evidence which supported his claim of innocence and pointed to the crime being committed by another individual. Morton was released from prison on October 4, 2011, and another man, Mark Alan Norwood, was convicted of the murder in 2013. The prosecutor in the case, Ken Anderson, was convicted of contempt of court for withholding evidence after the judge had ordered its release to the defense.
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.
Serial is an investigative journalism podcast hosted by Sarah Koenig, narrating a nonfiction story over multiple episodes. The series was co-created and is co-produced by Koenig and Julie Snyder and developed by This American Life; as of July 2020, it is owned by The New York Times.
Hae Min Lee was a Korean-American high school student who was last seen alive on January 13, 1999, in Baltimore County, Maryland. Her body was found four weeks later in Leakin Park; she had been killed by manual strangulation.
Maria Cristina Gutierrez was an American criminal defense attorney based in Baltimore, Maryland, who represented several high-profile defendants in the 1990s. She was the first Latina to be counsel of record in a case before the Supreme Court of the United States. In 2001, Gutierrez was disbarred, with her consent, following multiple complaints from clients who paid her for legal work she failed to perform. At the time, Gutierrez was dying from a combination of multiple sclerosis and diabetes, and her health was rapidly deteriorating.
Rabia Chaudry is a Pakistani-American attorney, author and podcast host. Family friend of Adnan Syed, subject of the podcast Serial (2014), Chaudry subsequently wrote a book about his case called Adnan’s Story: The Search for Truth and Justice After Serial (2016), which became a New York Times best seller. Chaudry co-hosts Undisclosed, a podcast on Syed's case and others.
C. Justin Brown is an American criminal defense attorney based in Baltimore, Maryland. He runs a law firm called Brown Law. He formerly represented Adnan Syed, who was convicted of murder in the 1999 killing of Hae Min Lee and was the subject of the first season of the podcast Serial in 2014.
Undisclosed is a podcast about wrongful convictions in the United States. It is hosted by Rabia Chaudry, Susan Simpson, and Colin Miller. Rabia Chaudry started it with fellow attorneys Susan Simpson and Colin Miller. The podcast started by investigating the conviction of Adnan Syed for the killing of Hae Min Lee, which had previously been the focus of the first season of the podcast Serial.
Are You Sleeping, the debut novel of Kathleen Barber, is a murder mystery. Barber draws on her knowledge of the law, practicing in Chicago and New York. Barber acknowledges that she was influenced by the Serial podcast, and a key element of the novel is a podcast that looks into the case of a prisoner who may have been wrongfully convicted of murder. The hardcover edition was published in 2017 and the paperback in 2018.
