Innocence
,Recent Legislative Activity
,Mar 30, 2020
After receiving unanimous support in the Florida House of Representatives, a bill that would have expanded access to postconviction DNA testing failed in the Florida Senate when the legislative body adjourned its 2020 legislative session without t…
Innocence
,Representation
,New Voices
,Feb 17, 2020
DNA exonerated Ryan Matthews in 2004, after he had spent five years on death row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola for a murder he did not commit. In December 2019, he received his college degree. “I’m…
Innocence
,Intellectual Disability
,Race
,May 22, 2020
Johnny Lee Gates (pictured) is free, 43 years after being sentenced to death in Georgia for a murder he has steadfastly maintained he did not commit. On May 15, 2020, Gates entered a so-called “Alford…
Victims' Families
,Jan 29, 2020
Georgia executed Donnie Lance on January 29, 2020 after his requests for DNA testing and a plea for clemency supported by the children he and murder victim Joy Lance shared were denied. Lance was convicted …
Innocence
,Sentencing Alternatives
,Upcoming Executions
,Executions Overview
,Jan 13, 2020
On January 16, Georgia plans to execute Jimmy Meders (pictured in his National Guard uniform), a man whom jurors say they would have sentenced to l…
Innocence
,Intellectual Disability
,Race
,Mar 16, 2020
More than forty years after he was convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white Columbus, Georgia jury for the rape and murder of a 19-year-old white woman, Johnny Lee Gates (pictured) will be getting a new trial. On March 13,…
Innocence
,Jan 29, 2020
In its unprecedented rush to execute eight prisoners over an eleven-day period in April 2017, Arka…
Innocence
,Mar 10, 2020
Paul Hildwin, whose death sentence was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1989 …
Innocence
,Feb 07, 2020
The last three men scheduled for execution in Georgia said they did not commit the killing and that DNA testing that was not available at the time of trial could prove it. In two of the cases, victim family members supported the r…
Innocence
,Oct 25, 2016
Sherman Brown (pictured), a man who was sentenced to death in Virginia in 1970 for the murder of a 4‑year-old boy, has filed a writ of actual innocence with the Virginia Supreme Court saying that DNA testing on re…
