Companion reports released on March 7 by the National Registry of Exonerations found record num­bers of exon­er­a­tions and wrong­ful con­vic­tions involv­ing offi­cial mis­con­duct in 2016, and strik­ing evi­dence of racial bias both in the wrong­ful con­vic­tions them­selves and in the time it took the judi­cial process to exon­er­ate the wrong­ful­ly incar­cer­at­ed. The Registry’s report, Exonerations in 2016, found a record 166 exon­er­a­tions in 2016, with 54 defen­dants exon­er­at­ed of homicide. 

A DPIC review of the Registry’s data revealed that the death penal­ty played a role in near­ly a quar­ter of the homi­cide exon­er­a­tions. In at least six of the wrong­ful homi­cide con­vic­tions, pros­e­cu­tors had sought the death penal­ty at tri­al; in anoth­er, an inno­cent defen­dant had pled guilty to avoid the death penal­ty; and at least six addi­tion­al exon­er­a­tions were the prod­uct of wit­ness­es hav­ing false­ly impli­cat­ed inno­cent defen­dants after police had threat­ened the wit­ness or a loved one with the death penal­ty unless the wit­ness coop­er­at­ed with the investigation. 

The Registry’s com­pan­ion report, Race and Wrongful Convictions in the United States, ana­lyzes exon­er­a­tions for mur­der, sex­u­al assault, and drug crimes since 1989. The report found that black peo­ple are sev­en times more like­ly to be wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed of mur­der than white peo­ple and that African Americans impris­oned for mur­der are more like­ly to be inno­cent if they were con­vict­ed of killing white vic­tims. Police offi­cers were more like­ly to have com­mit­ted mis­con­duct in the cas­es in which black defen­dants were exon­er­at­ed of mur­der than in exon­er­a­tions of white murder defendants. 

In addi­tion, jus­tice was delayed in exon­er­a­tions of black mur­der defen­dants, who, on aver­age, wait­ed three years longer than whites before being released from prison. An analy­sis of the DPIC death-row exon­er­a­tion data­base cor­rob­o­rates the National Registry’s con­clu­sions: 16 of the last 18 death-row exon­er­a­tions had police or pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct as their pri­ma­ry cause. 18 of the exonerees in the last 25 mis­con­duct-relat­ed death-row exon­er­a­tions are black. While 68.8% of wrong­ly con­vict­ed non-black death-row exonerees were exon­er­at­ed in 10 years or less, it took the judi­cial sys­tem 11 years or more to exon­er­ate 57.3% of the wrong­ly con­vict­ed black death-row exonerees. 84.6% of all cas­es in which exon­er­a­tion took 26 years or more involved black defendants.

(“Exonerations in 2016,” National Registry of Exonerations, March 7, 2017; S. Gross, M. Possley, and K. Stephens,“Race and Wrongful Convictions in the United States,” National Registry of Exonerations, March 7, 2017; Press Release, March 7, 2017.) See Innocence, Race, Studies, and Prosecutorial Misconduct. Read DPIC’s Statement on the reports.

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