Entries tagged with “Mississippi Innocence Project”
Policy Issues
Innocence
,Race
,Jan 12, 2021
Convicted by False Forensic Evidence, Eddie Lee Howard, Jr. Exonerated From Mississippi Death Row After 26 Years
Eddie Lee Howard, Jr., convicted and sentenced to death based on the false forensic testimony of a since disgraced prosecution expert witness, has been exonerated after nearly 26 years on Mississippi’s death row. He is the 174th former death-row prisoner exonerated in the U.S. since 1973 and the sixth in…
Policy Issues
Innocence
,Representation
,Sep 06, 2016
Mississippi Attorney General Tries to Remove Defense Lawyers Who Challenged Suspect Bitemark Evidence
Attorneys for Mississippi death row prisoner Eddie Lee Howard (pictured) are seeking to prove his innocence and challenging the questionable expert bite mark testimony that persuaded jurors to convict him and sentence him to death in 1992. As part of the attack on that evidence, Howard’s lawyers recently deposed Michael West, the discredited forensic odontologist who testified against Howard and many other defendants in the 1990s, primarily in Mississippi and…
Policy Issues
Innocence
,Sep 01, 2020
Mississippi Supreme Court Grants New Trial to Eddie Howard, Sentenced to Death by Junk Bite-Mark Evidence
The Mississippi Supreme Court has granted a new trial to death-row prisoner Eddie Lee Howard, Jr. (pictured), finding that the combination of scientifically invalid bite-mark evidence used to convict him and new DNA evidence entitled him to a new trial in the 1992 murder and alleged rape of an 84-year-old white…
Policy Issues
Innocence
,Sep 30, 2021
Sherwood Brown Exonerated in Mississippi, 186th Death-Row Exoneration Since 1973
Sherwood Brown has been exonerated of the charges that sent him to death row in Mississippi in 1995 for a triple murder he did not commit. On August 24, 2021, DeSoto County Circuit Court Judge Jimmy McClure granted a prosecution motion to dismiss charges against Brown (pictured after his release), who was released later that day after having spent 26 years on the state’s death row or facing the prospects of a capital…