2019 Exoneration Report: Official Misconduct and Perjury Remain Leading Causes of Wrongful Homicide Convictions

Official mis­con­duct and per­jury or false accu­sa­tion con­tin­ue to be the main rea­sons inno­cent men and women are wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed in America, accord­ing to the 2019 annu­al report by the National Registry of Exonerations. That mis­con­duct, the report indi­cates, is most preva­lent in cas­es involv­ing the most seri­ous criminal charges. 

The reg­istry report­ed on March 31, 2020 that 143 men and women were exon­er­at­ed in 2019 fol­low­ing wrong­ful con­vic­tions across the United States. More than half (76) involved wrong­ful con­vic­tions for homi­cide, includ­ing three peo­ple who had been sen­tenced to death, and oth­er cas­es in which inno­cent defen­dants had been cap­i­tal­ly tried, defen­dants threat­ened with the death penal­ty had false­ly con­fessed, or wit­ness­es threat­ened with the death penal­ty had pro­vid­ed tes­ti­mo­ny false­ly impli­cat­ing innocent defendants. 

Perjury or false accu­sa­tion was present in 101 of the 143 exon­er­a­tions (70.6%), mak­ing it the most preva­lent fac­tor in the 2019 exon­er­a­tions, large­ly because of 14 exon­er­a­tions in which a Chicago police sergeant had plant­ed drugs on sus­pects he had arrest­ed. Even then, per­jury or false accu­sa­tion was more pro­nounced in homi­cide cas­es, where it was present 76.3% of the time (58 of 76 cas­es), as com­pared with 43 of 67 (64.2%) non-homicide cases.

Official mis­con­duct by police, pros­e­cu­tors, or oth­er gov­ern­ment actors — most com­mon­ly in the form of with­hold­ing excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence — was the next most fre­quent con­tribut­ing fac­tor in the 2019 exon­er­a­tions, occur­ring in near­ly two-thirds of all exon­er­a­tions (93 of 143). Again, mis­con­duct was more pro­nounced in the wrong­ful homi­cide con­vic­tions, in which it was 1.4 times more like­ly to occur. Misconduct was present in three-quar­ters of homi­cide exon­er­a­tions (57 of 76 cas­es), com­pared to slight­ly more than half (36 of the 67, 53.7%) of the wrong­ful con­vic­tion for crimes oth­er than homicide.

The report not­ed that exon­er­a­tions in 2019 involved a record num­ber of years lost to incar­cer­a­tion – the 143 exonerees spent a total of 1,908 years in prison. This pat­tern was reflect­ed in the death-row exon­er­a­tions that took place last year, which includ­ed two pris­on­ers who each spent more than 40 years wrong­ful­ly incar­cer­at­ed and a third who was on death row for 26 years. 

Barbara O’Brien, the report’s author, empha­sized the preva­lence of wrong­ful con­vic­tions through­out the legal sys­tem, and the impor­tance the issue has tak­en on dur­ing the cur­rent pan­dem­ic. ​“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,” she said.

The report spot­light­ed sev­er­al 2019 exon­er­a­tions linked to the mis­use of the death penal­ty. Clifford Williams, Jr. was sen­tenced to death in Florida in 1976 and spent 42 years in prison before the Duval County Conviction Integrity Unit rein­ves­ti­gat­ed his case and found ​“no cred­i­ble evi­dence of guilt and … cred­i­ble evi­dence of inno­cence.” No phys­i­cal evi­dence linked Williams to the crime, and wit­ness accounts con­tra­dict­ed the bal­lis­tics evi­dence in the case. Williams’ defense coun­sel had pre­sent­ed no wit­ness­es, ignor­ing 40 ali­bi wit­ness­es who could have tes­ti­fied that Williams was at a birth­day par­ty at the time of the crime. Like the vast major­i­ty of Florida death-row exonerees, Williams’ jury had not vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly for death; in fact, his tri­al judge over­rode a jury rec­om­men­da­tion of a life sentence. 

Charles Ray Finch also was sen­tenced to death in 1976. Finch’s case involved both lead­ing caus­es of wrong­ful con­vic­tions: offi­cial mis­con­duct and per­jury. Police in Wilson County, North Carolina obtained wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of Finch through sug­ges­tive line­ups and the pros­e­cu­tion pre­sent­ed false tes­ti­mo­ny link­ing Finch to a weapon that did not actu­al­ly match the one used in the mur­der. Several pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness­es lat­er tes­ti­fied that they had been pres­sured into giv­ing false testimony.

The year’s third death-row exon­er­a­tion, that of Christopher Williams in Pennsylvania, was the result of offi­cial mis­con­duct and false accu­sa­tion by a self-inter­est­ed infor­mant. Philadelphia pros­e­cu­tors delib­er­ate­ly with­held excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence. The key pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness coop­er­at­ed with pros­e­cu­tors in exchange for avoid­ing cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion for six dif­fer­ent mur­ders. Williams’ case was one of thir­teen homi­cide exon­er­a­tions in Philadelphia in 2019, and one of nine aid­ed by inves­ti­ga­tions by the DA’s Conviction Integrity Unit. 

Other cas­es ref­er­enced in the report involved the use or threat of the death penal­ty. Robert Yell was exon­er­at­ed in Kentucky of the arson-relat­ed mur­der of his son. In mid-March 2020, he filed a civ­il rights law­suit alleg­ing that law enforce­ment framed him. Prosecutors ini­tial­ly sought the death penal­ty in the case but with­drew it at the start of Yell’s tri­al. He was con­vict­ed of manslaugh­ter and sen­tenced to 52 years, but his attor­neys say the evi­dence against him was fab­ri­cat­ed and that law enforce­ment hid evi­dence that the fire was caused by a faulty elec­tri­cal out­let. Christopher Tapp was exon­er­at­ed in Idaho after a record­ing came to light that revealed police had told Tapp he faced the death penal­ty if he didn’t con­fess, lied to him that he had failed poly­graph tests, sug­gest­ed he had repressed mem­o­ries of the killing, and offered him lenien­cy — includ­ing pos­si­ble immu­ni­ty — for impli­cat­ing oth­ers. Florida exoneree Ronald Stewart was posthu­mous­ly cleared of the mur­der of Regina Harrison, which he had con­fessed to under threat of a death sen­tence. His case was re-exam­ined after Jack Jones, who was exe­cut­ed in Arkansas in 2017, sent a let­ter to his sis­ter con­fess­ing to Harrison’s mur­der. After Florida police deemed Harrison’s case closed, Jones went on to com­mit an addi­tion­al rape and murder.

DPIC is con­duct­ing a deep­er analy­sis of the 2019 exon­er­a­tions to deter­mine the extent to which the death penal­ty is impli­cat­ed in obtain­ing false con­fes­sions or false wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny. The DPIC exon­er­a­tion analy­sis is expect­ed to be released before April 10.