The Innocence Project has launched a new mul­ti­me­dia resource illus­trat­ing the main caus­es of wrong­ful con­vic­tions and the reforms nec­es­sary to pre­vent such mis­takes. This inter­ac­tive tool, ​“Getting it Right,” fea­tures videos, case stud­ies and research on such top­ics as false con­fes­sions, eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, infor­mant tes­ti­mo­ny, and fail­ures by the defense and pros­e­cu­tion. Three death penal­ty cas­es are high­light­ed: Ron Williamson, Earl Washington, Jr., and Ray Krone, who col­lec­tive­ly spent 44 years in prison or on death row before the dis­cov­ery of their inno­cence and even­tu­al exon­er­a­tion. Washington’s lawyer had nev­er han­dled a death penal­ty case before. He was con­vict­ed after a five-hour tri­al and came with­in nine days of exe­cu­tion. Williamson was con­vict­ed based on ques­tion­able foren­sic evi­dence that seemed to tie him to the scene of the crime. At one point, Williamson came with­in five days of exe­cu­tion. Krone was con­vict­ed on the basis of faulty bite-mark evi­dence that even the FBI indi­cat­ed was not a match to Krone. All three were lat­er exon­er­at­ed based on DNA evidence. 

The Innocence Project is a non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that assists pris­on­ers who could be proven inno­cent through DNA test­ing. This new resrource was pro­duced in part­ner­ship with University of Virginia Law School Professor Brandon Garrett, author of, ​“Convicting the Innocent.”

(The Innocence Project, ​“Getting it Right,” August 18, 2011). See Innocence. Find oth­er Multimedia resources on the death penalty.

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