Innocence

Additional Resources

DPIC Resources

Reports

Podcasts

On the Issues — Episode 5: Innocence (2009)
Discussions With DPIC — Innocence and Prosecutorial Misconduct, with Exoneree Isaiah McCoy and Lawyers Michael Wiseman and Herbert Mondros (2017)
Discussions With DPIC — Columnist Nicholas Kristof on The Framing of Kevin Cooper (2018)
Discussions With DPIC — “Unrequited Innocence” with Rob Warden and John Seasly (2019)
Discussions With DPIC — Carine Williams of the Innocence Project Discusses Death Penalty, Innocence, and ‘the Function of Freedom’ (2021)
Discussion With DPIC — KKirk Bloodsworth, Thirty Years After His Exoneration (2023)

Archival DPIC Content

Articles and Other Publications

Phillip Morris, Sentenced to Death, but Innocent: These Are Stories of Justice Gone Wrong, National Geographic, 24 Aug. 2021
That Bird Has My Wings: The Autobiography of an Innocent Man on Death Row by Jarvis Jay Masters
The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions by Sister Helen Prejean
False Justice: Eight Myths That Convict the Innocent by Jim Petro and Nancy Petro
Last Words from Death Row: The Walls Unit by Norma Herrera
Convicted by Juries, Exonerated by Science: Case Studies in the Use of DNA Evidence to Establish Innocence After Trial by Edward F. Connors
Gross SR et al. “Rate of false conviction of criminal defendants who are sentenced to death.” Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. (2014).
Austin Sarat et al. “Innocence is Not Enough: The Public Life of Death Row Exonerations,” British Journal of American Legal Studies, Volume 9(2) (2020).
Samantha K. Brooks and Neil Greenburg, “Psychological impact of being wrongfully accused of criminal offences: A systematic literature review,” Med Sci Law. 2021 Jan; 61(1): 44–54.

Related Websites

To contact individuals who have been exonerated from death row, visit Witness to Innocence.

For information about Innocence Projects across the country, visit The Innocence Project.

For information about exonerations in the United States, visit The National Registry of Exonerations.

Other Resources

United States v. Quinones, innocence concerns and the constitutionality of the death penalty

List of Exonerations in German: Unschuldige und ihre Faelle in Kuerze

In This Section

DPIC Special Reports

DPIC Special Report: The Innocence Epidemic

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DPIC In-Depth Reports

Innocence and the Crisis in the American Death Penalty

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Alabama Pardons Scottsboro Boys

On November 21, 2013, the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously voted to posthumously pardon Charles Weems, Andy Wright, and Haywood Patterson, three of the nine "Scottsboro Boys," a group of black teenagers who were charged in 1931 of raping two white women.

70 Years Later, Florida Posthumously Pardons the “Groveland Four”

On January 11, 2019, the Florida Clemency Board unanimously granted posthumous pardons to the “Groveland Four,” four young African-American men falsely accused of raping a young white woman in Lake County, Florida in 1949. During the racist hysteria following the accusation, white mobs burned down black residences, a massive white posse lynched a black suspect, all-white juries condemned two innocent men to death and an innocent teen to a life sentence, and a racist sheriff murdered one of the men and attempted to kill another.