The British Court of Appeal has overturned George Kelly’s 1950 murder conviction more than half a century after Kelly was executed for the murder of a Liverpool movie theater manager. In his ruling, Judge Bernard Rix called the conviction “a miscarriage of justice which must be deeply regretted” and noted that the case against Kelly was entirely circumstantial and lacked any forensic evidence. The case was reexamined after new evidence of Kelly’s innocence emerged in 1991. The Criminal Cases Review Commission, an independent organization that considers possible miscarriages of justice, raised Kelly’s appeal after investigators found a 1949 statement to Liverpool police identifying another man as admitting to the crime. The statement had not been presented during Kelly’s original trial, at which he maintained his innocence. Britain abolished the death penalty in 1969, five years after their last hanging.
(Associated Press, June 10, 2003). See Innocence.