On October 4, three men were released from pris­ons in Chicago (Illinois), Austin (Texas), and Los Angeles (California), after serv­ing a com­bined six decades in prison for unre­lat­ed mur­ders when courts over­turned their con­vic­tions. In Texas, Michael Morton, who was con­vict­ed of killing his wife in 1986 based on cir­cum­stan­cial evi­dence, was cleared by new DNA tests. Jacques Rivera from Illinois was con­vict­ed of a gang-relat­ed mur­der on the basis of false evi­dence. In California, Obie Anthony’s mur­der con­vic­tion was over­turned after it was estab­lished that the pri­ma­ry wit­ness in his case had lied after mak­ing a deal with the pros­e­cu­tion. While these defen­dants were not fac­ing exe­cu­tion for their mur­der con­vic­tions, their cas­es high­light flaws in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem that have also led to wrong­ful con­vic­tions in death penal­ty cas­es. ​“I thank God this was­n’t a cap­i­tal case. I only had life,” Mr. Morton said after his release. In Morton’s case, pros­e­cu­tors with­held a state­ment by his son say­ing that he was not the killer. Government mis­con­duct, along with false eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny, false or coerced con­fes­sions, and use of infor­mants, are some of the lead­ing caus­es of wrong­ful con­vic­tions, accord­ing to the Innocence Project, a non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that assist­ed in the release of the three defendants.

(R. Cornwell, ​“Three men walk free on a his­toric day for US jus­tice,” The Independent (UK), October 6, 2011). See Innocence.

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