Miscarriage of justice

A miscarriage of justice is primarily the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime that he or she did not commit. The term can also be applied to errors in the other direction — "errors of impunity" — and to civil cases, but those usages are rarer, though the occurrences appear to be much more common. Most criminal justice systems have some means to overturn, or "quash", a wrongful conviction, but this is often difficult to achieve. The most serious instances occur when a wrongful conviction is not overturned for several years, or until after the innocent person has been executed or died in jail.

"Miscarriage of justice" is sometimes synonymous with wrongful conviction, referring to a conviction reached in an unfair or disputed trial. Wrongful convictions are frequently cited by death penalty opponents as cause to eliminate death penalties to avoid executing innocent persons. In recent years DNA evidence has been used to clear many people falsely convicted.

Scandinavian languages have a word, the Norwegian variant of which is justismord, which is literally translated "justice murder". The term exists in several languages and was originally used for cases where the accused was convicted, executed and later cleared after death. With capital punishment decreasing, the expression has acquired an extended meaning, namely any conviction of a person of a crime he/she did not commit. The retention of the term "murder" both demonstrates universal abhorrence against wrongful convictions and awareness of how destructive wrongful convictions are.

General issues
Causes of miscarriages of justice include:
 * confirmation bias on the part of investigators
 * withholding or destruction of evidence by police or prosecution
 * fabrication of evidence
 * biased editing of evidence
 * poor identification
 * overestimation/underestimation of the evidential value of expert testimony
 * contaminated evidence
 * faulty forensic tests
 * false confessions due to police pressure or psychological weakness
 * misdirection of a jury by a judge during trial
 * perjured evidence by the real guilty party or their accomplices (frameup)
 * perjured evidence by the supposed victim or their accomplices
 * perjured evidence by police officers or their accomplices
 * perjured evidence of confession given by jailhouse informants
 * errors of due process and errors of impunity
 * failure or incompetence of the defense

Often, whether a case is in fact a miscarriage of justice remains controversial for a long time. The criminal justice system in most countries is predisposed against changing its mind, only overturning a wrong conviction when the evidence against the conviction is overwhelming. The result is that many wrongly-convicted people spend many years in prison before their convictions are quashed and they are released.

The risk of miscarriages of justice is one of the main arguments against the death penalty. Where condemned persons are executed promptly after conviction, the most significant effect of a miscarriage of justice is irreversible. (Wrongly-executed people are nevertheless occasionally posthumously pardoned — which is essentially a null action — or have their convictions quashed.) Many states that still practice the death penalty hold condemned persons for ten years or more before execution.

Even when a wrongly-convicted person is not executed, spending years in prison often has an effect on the person and their family that is irreversible and substantial. The risk of miscarriage of justice is thereby also a reasonable argument against long sentences, like life sentence, and cruel sentence conditions.

Australia

 * Lindy Chamberlain was convicted for the murder of her 9 week-old daughter, Azaria, in 1982 after claiming that the baby had been taken off by a dingo. In 1988 her conviction was overturned and she was released from prison.
 * Andrew Mallard was convicted for the murder of jeweller Pamela Lawrence in 1994 after eight unrecorded hours of police interrogation and a brief recorded "confession" that followed. In 2005 the High Court of Australia was advised that the prosecution and/or police had withheld evidence which showed his innocence, and overturned his conviction.  As such Mallard was released from prison.  A "cold case" review of the murder conducted after Mallard's release implicated one Simon Rochford as the actual offender and Mallard was exonerated.
 * Salvatore Fazzari, Jose Martinez and Carlos Pereiras were convicted in 2006 for the murder of Phillip Walsham in 1998. The conviction was overturned by the Western Australian Court of Appeal in 2007 on the grounds that the verdicts of guilty were unreasonable and could not be supported on the evidence.
 * Roseanne Catt was convicted in 1991 on 9 counts including attempted murder of her husband Barry Catt. She was arrested after she had agreed to assist the Department of Family and Community services in the prosecution of her husband for molesting his children (her stepchildren).  The detective leading the investigation (Peter Thomas) was a business of Barry Catt and had had a previous antagonistic relationship with Roseanne Catt. The investigation was carried out from the home of a friend of Barry Catt rather than from the local police station.  The crown prosecutor was Patrick Power who later pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography.  In 2004, after an 18 month investigation by Judge Davidson, Ms Catt's appeals against seven of the nine convictions (including attempted murder) were upheld whereas the other two convictions were allowed to stand.

Canada

 * Robert Baltovich was convicted in 1992 of the murder of Elizabeth Bain; released in 2000 to prepare an appeal based on new evidence; although he has not been officially exonerated, the Crown has not pursued the case since his release; new evidence points to Paul Bernardo, an acquaintance of Ms Bain's, as her killer.
 * James Driskell, Canadian wrongfully convicted in 1991 of the murder of Perry Harder; his conviction was quashed and the charges stayed in 2005 due to DNA testing, but he has not been fully exonerated.
 * Donald Marshall, Canadian Mi'kmaq Aboriginal wrongfully convicted in 1971 of the murder of Sandy Seale; acquitted on appeal in 1983 after an additional witness to the murder came forward.
 * In 1969, David Milgaard, a 16-year old, was convicted and given a life sentence for the murder of 20-year old nursing aide Gail Miller. After 23 years of imprisonment, the Supreme Court of Canada allowed for the release of Milgaard. Five years later DNA testing proved his innocence.
 * Guy Paul Morin, Canadian wrongfully convicted in 1992 of the murder of Christine Jessop; he was exonerated by DNA evidence in 1995.
 * Thomas Sophonow, Canadian wrongfully convicted in 1981 of the murder of Barbara Stoppel; acquitted on appeal in 1985, and conclusively exonerated by DNA evidence in 2000.
 * Ronald Dalton, wrongfully convicted of murdering his late wife, Brenda Dalton in August 1988. It was later found that Brenda Dalton choked on cereal
 * Steven Truscott's wrongful conviction of murder in the death of Lynne Harper stood for 48 years before finally being overturned August 282007

France

 * Joan of Arc was executed in 1431 on charges of heresy. She was posthumously cleared in 1456.
 * Jean Calas from Toulouse was executed on 10 March 1762 for murder of his son Marc Antoine. The philosopher Voltaire, convinced of his innocence, succeeded in reopening of the case and rehabilitation of Jean in 1765.
 * Alfred Dreyfus was wrongly convicted for treason in 1894. After being imprisoned on Devil's Island he was proven innocent with the assistance of Emile Zola and definitively rehabilitated only in 1906. See the Dreyfus Affair.
 * In 2005, thirteen persons were finally proven innocent of child molestation after having served four years in prison. A fourteenth died in prison. Only four persons were proven guilty. This infamous case, which has deeply shaken the public opinion, is known as the "Affaire d'Outreau", the Outreau case, from the name of the city where these persons lived, in the north of France.

Italy

 * Pietro Valpreda, an anarchist condemned for the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing, finally found innocent sixteen years later.

Ireland

 * Sallins Train Robbery

Netherlands

 * Cees Borsboom was released in December 2004 after serving four years in prison of a sentence of 18 years for a murder in June 2000 of a 10-year old girl in a Schiedam park, which he had nothing to do with. He was released after Wik Haalmeijer confessed the murder. This confession was confirmed by DNA evidence on the victim and the description of the attacker given to the police by another victim, Maikel, who narrowly survived the attack. Investigation of the way criminal justice acted in this case revealed that the police and the public prosecutor made large mistakes, ignored relevant information and brutalised the 11-year old victim Maikel. The minister of justice Piet Hein Donner had to take all responsibility. In September 2005 he survived a no-confidence motion in parliament but did set up the Posthumus I and Posthumus II committees. The state of the Netherlands paid Cees Borsboom € 600.850,- compensation and the parents of Maikel an unknown amount.


 * This event, as well as the similarly overturned case of the Putten Three, led to the installation of the Posthumus I committee, which analysed what had gone wrong in the Schiedam Park Murder case, coming to the conclusion that "tunnel-vision" led the police to ignore and misinterpret scientific evidence. Subsequently the so-called Posthumus II committee was set up to investigate whether more of such cases might have occurred. The committee received 25 applications from concerned and involved scientists, and decided to take three of them into further consideration, among them the celebrated Lucia de Berk case (submitted by Philosophy Professor Ton Derksen). This could lead to recommendations for retrial.


 * There are also continuing attempts to get the celebrated Deventer murder case, the Ida Post case, the Enschede incest case, the Overzier murder case and the Kevin Sweeney case reopened, in all of which tunnel-vision and misuse of complex scientific evidence is claimed by independent researchers (among them, the well-known law professors Wagenaar, van Koppen, Israëls, Crombag) to have led to miscarriages of justice.

New Zealand

 * Arthur Allan Thomas, a New Zealand farmer, was twice convicted of the murders of Jeanette and Harvey Crewe on June 17, 1970. He spent 10 years in prison but a Royal Commission in 1980 showed the prosecution cases were flawed, and that police had deliberately planted bullets in a garden to use as evidence. Thomas was given a Royal Pardon, and was released and awarded $1 million compensation for wrongful convictions.
 * David Bain was convicted in 1995 of the murder of all five members of his family the previous year. After 13 years in prison, his convictions were finally overturned in 2007 by the Privy Council, who found that a substantial miscarriage of justice had occurred. He has been granted bail pending a retrial.

Norway
He committed suicide in 1987, his life in ruins after time in prison. In 1997 his two children, then 20 and 22, demanded the case reopened, claiming that no molestation had found place and that Hages wife had lied. Hage was cleared in 1998. Hages ex-wife later made similar accusations against her new husband.
 * Per Kristian Liland, wrongfully convicted of murdering two of his friends in 1969. He was cleared in 1994.
 * Fritz Moen was wrongfully convicted for separate murders of two 20-year old women in 1976 and 1977. He was cleared for one murder in 2005 and the second in 2006, after his death.
 * Sveinung Rødseth was wrongfully convicted in 1981 for the murder of his 5-month old daughter. He was cleared in 1997.
 * Atle Hage was wrongfully convicted for incest to his two children in 1984. His wife accused him when the couple divorced.


 * Former Lagmannsretts judge Trygve-Lange Nielsen has worked with dedication to clear victims for wrongful incest convictions. In 2004, 24 cases were solved as wrongful. Nielsen has stated that as many as 150 convictions or more probably are wrongful.

Spain
The Constitution of Spain guarantees compensation in cases of miscarriage of justice.


 * The case known as "El crimen de Cuenca" (the crime of Cuenca) where in 1910 two peasants were convicted of the murder of another peasant who had disappeared even though the body was never found. Some years later the disappeared peasant showed up again and proved the conviction was wrongful.


 * The so-called "Wanninkhof case" where Dolores Vazquez was convicted of the murder of Rocío Wanninkhof in 1999. Later DNA evidence exonerated her.

Sweden

 * Joy Rahman, a man of Bangladeshi origin, was in 1994 wrongfully convicted to life imprisonment for the murder of an elderly lady. After almost nine years in prison, he was freed by the Svea Court of Appeal, and later awarded 8 million SEK, the highest compensation ever awarded to a person in Sweden for wrongful conviction.

England and Wales and Northern Ireland
In the United Kingdom a jailed person whose conviction is quashed may be paid compensation for the time they were incarcerated.

It was a notable problem that the parole system assumes that all convicted persons are actually guilty, and that it poorly handled those who are not. In order to be paroled, a convicted person was required to sign a document in which, among other things, they confessed to the crime for which they were convicted. Someone refusing to sign such a declaration of remorse ended up spending longer in jail than a genuinely guilty person would have. Some wrongly convicted people, such as the Birmingham Six, were refused parole for this reason. In 2005 the system changed in this respect, and a handful of prisoners started to be paroled without ever admitting guilt.

In the event of a "perverse" verdict that involves the conviction of a defendant who should not have been convicted on the basis of the evidence presented, English law has no means of correcting this error: appeals being based exclusively upon new evidence or errors by the judge or prosecution (but not the defence), or because of jury irregularities. The tacit underlying assumption is that untrained juries are perfect and do not make mistakes. There is no right to a trial without jury.

During the early 1990s there was a series of high-profile cases revealed to have been miscarriages of justice. Many resulted from police fabricating evidence, in order to convict the person they thought was guilty, or simply to convict someone in order to get a high conviction rate. The West Midlands Serious Crime Squad became notorious for such practices, and was disbanded in 1989. In 1997 the Criminal Cases Review Commission was established specifically in order to examine possible miscarriages of justice. However, it still requires either strong new evidence of innocence or new proof of a legal error by the judge or prosecution. For example, merely insisting you are innocent and the jury made an error, or stating that there was not enough evidence to prove guilt, is not enough. It is not possible to question the jury's decision or query on what matters it was based. The waiting list for cases to be considered for review is at least two years on average. See, for example:
 * the Darvell brothers
 * Danny McNamee
 * the M25 Three
 * Jonathan Jones
 * Sheila Bowler

Other miscarriages include:

 * Robert Green, Henry Berry and Lawrence Hill were hanged in 1679 at Greenberry Hill on false evidence for the unsolved murder of Edmund Berry Godfrey.
 * Adolph (or Adolf) Beck, whose notorious wrongful conviction in 1896 led to the creation of the Court of Criminal Appeal.
 * Timothy Evans' wife and young daughter were killed in 1949. Evans was convicted of killing of his daughter and hanged. It was later found that the real murderer was Reg Christie, another tenant in the same house, who eventually killed six women. Evans was the first person in Britain to receive a posthumous free pardon.
 * Derek Bentley, executed for murdering a police officer. The charge was based on the fact that during a police chase, he shouted to an armed friend 'Let him have it'. The case is often said to be a miscarriage of justice, and the verdict was overturned half a century later. It should be noted, however, that the grounds for overturning the verdict was that the trial had not been fair, due to various procedural defects. Had Bentley still been alive, there would certainly have been a retrial; he was not pronounced innocent by the Court of Appeal.
 * Stephen Downing was convicted of the murder of Wendy Sewell in a Bakewell churchyard in 1973. The 17-year-old had a reading age of 11 and worked at the cemetery as a gardener. The police made him sign a confession that he was unable to read. The case gained international notoriety as the "Bakewell Tart" murder. After spending 27 years in prison, Stephen Downing was released on bail in February of 2001, pending the result of an appeal. His conviction was finally overturned in January 2002.
 * John Joseph Boyle aged 18 was convicted under the pretences of an alleged confession at Belfast City Commission on 14 October 1977 of possession of firearms and ammunition with intent to endanger life, and membership in the I.R.A. He was sentenced to ten years in prison on the first count, and to two years in prison on the second count, the terms to run concurrently. A suspended sentence of two years imprisonment imposed for a previous offence was also invoked, making a total of twelve years in prison. When released he underwent a long fight to prove his innocence. In 2003, his conviction was quashed but he has been denied compensation.
 * Andrew Evans served more than 25 years for the murder of 14-year-old Judith Roberts. He confessed to the 1972 murder after seeing the girl's face in a dream. His conviction was overturned in 1997.
 * In 1974 Judith Ward was convicted of murder of several people caused by a number of IRA bombings 1973. She was finally released in 1992.
 * The Birmingham Six were fraudulently convicted in 1975 of planting two bombs in pubs in Birmingham in 1974 which killed 21 people and injured 182. They were finally released in 1991.
 * The Guildford Four were wrongly convicted in 1975 of being members of the Provisional IRA and planting bombs in two Guildford pubs which killed four people. They served nearly 15 years in prison before being released in 1989. (See Tony Blair's apology under The Maguire Seven below.)
 * The Maguire Seven were convicted in 1976 of offences related to the Guildford and Woolwich bombings of 1974. They served sentences ranging from 5 to 10 years. Giuseppe Conlon died in prison. Their convictions were quashed in 1991. On 9 February 2005 British Prime Minister Tony Blair issued a public apology to the Maguire Seven and the Guildford Four for the miscarriages of justice they had suffered. He said: "I am very sorry that they were subject to such an ordeal and such an injustice. They deserve to be completely and publicly exonerated."
 * Stefan Kiszko was convicted in 1976 of the sexual assault and murder of an 11-year old Lesley Molseed in 1975. He spent 16 years in prison before he was released in 1992, after a long campaign by his mother. He died of a heart attack the following year at the age of 41. His mother died a few months later.
 * The Bridgewater Four were convicted in 1979 of murdering Carl Bridgewater, a 13-year-old paper boy who was shot on his round when he disturbed robbers at a farm in Staffordshire. Patrick Molloy died in jail in 1981. The remaining three were released in 1997.
 * The Cardiff Three, Steven Miller, Yusef Abdullahi and Tony Paris were falsely jailed for the murder of prostitute Lynette White, stabbed more than 50 times in a frenzied attack in a flat above a betting shop in Cardiff's Butetown area on Valentine's Day 1988, in 1990 and later cleared on appeal. In 2003, Jeffrey Gafoor was jailed for life for the murder. The breakthrough was due to modern DNA techniques used on evidence taken from the crime scene. Subsequently, in 2005, 9 retired Police Officers and 3 serving Officers were arrested and questioned for false imprisonment, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and misconduct in public office.
 * Peter Fell, a former hospital porter, described in the media as a "serial confessor" and a "fantasist", was sentenced to two life terms in 1984 for the murder of Ann Lee and Margaret "Peggy" Johnson, who were killed whilst they were out walking their dogs in 1982. His conviction was overturned in 2001.
 * Sally Clark was convicted in 1996 of the murder of her two small sons Christopher and Harry, and spent 3 years in jail, finally being released in 2003 on appeal. The convictions were based solely on the analysis of the deaths by the Home Office Pathologist Alan Williams, who failed to disclose relevant information about the deaths, and backed up by the paediatric professor Sir Roy Meadow, whose opinion was pivotal in several other child death convictions, many of which have been overturned or are in the process of being challenged. In 2005 Alan Williams was found guilty of serious professional misconduct and barred from practicing pathology for 3 years. In July 2005 Meadows was also struck off for serious professional misconduct and barred. Sally Clark became alcoholic as a result of her ordeal and died in 2006.
 * Angela Canning also jailed wrongly for 4 years on the now discredited evidence of Roy Meadows. Angela was later stalked by a jail inmate she befriended, and the strain of the wrongful conviction destroyed her marriage.
 * Donna Anthony, 25 at the time, was wrongly jailed in 1998 for the death of her 11 month old son, and finally released in 2005, also because of the opinion of Sir Roy Meadow.
 * The Gurnos Three, also known as the Merthyr Tydfil Arson Case (Annette Hewins, Donna Clarke and Denise Sullivan). Wrongly convicted of the arson attack on the home of Diane Jones, aged 21, in October 1995. Someone had torn away part of the covering of her front door and poured in petrol to start the fire. The fire spread so rapidly that Ms Jones and her two daughters, Shauna, aged two and Sarah-Jane, aged 13 months, were all killed. The convictions of Ms Hewins and Ms Clarke were quashed at the Court of Appeal in February 1998 and a retrial ordered in the case of Ms Clarke.
 * Michelle and Lisa Taylor, wrongly convicted for the murder in 1991 of Alison Shaughnessy, a bank clerk who was the bride of Michelle's former lover. The trial was heavily influenced by inaccurate media reporting and deemed unfair.
 * Paul Blackburn was convicted in 1978 when aged 15 of the attempted murder of a 9-year old boy, and spent more than 25 years in 18 different prisons, during which time he maintained his innocence. He said he had never considered saying he was guilty to secure an earlier release because it was a matter of "integrity". He was finally released in May 2005 when the Court of Appeal ruled his trial was unfair and his conviction 'unsafe'.
 * The Cardiff Newsagent Three, Michael O'Brien, Darren Hall and Ellis Sherwood, were wrongly convicted for the murder of a newsagent, Phillip Saunders. On October 12 1987 Mr Saunders, 52, was battered with a spade outside his Cardiff home. The day's takings from his kiosk had been stolen, and five days later he died of his injuries. The three men spent 11 years in jail before the Court of Appeal quashed the conviction in 1999. The three have since been paid six figure compensation, but South Wales Police had still not apologised or admitted liability for malicious prosecution or misfeasance.
 * Andrew Adams, wrongly convicted of the murder of a retired teacher. His conviction was finally quashed on 12th Jan 2007, after spending 14 years in jail.

Errors of impunity

 * John Bodkin Adams, is a particularly notable case when a man was acquitted when he may, now with access to archives, be considered to have been guilty in all likelihood. Adams was arrested in 1956 for the murders of Edith Alice Morrell and Gertrude Hullett. He was tried in 1957 and found not guilty of the first charge and the second was dropped via a Nolle prosequi, an act which the presiding judge, Lord Justice Patrick Devlin, later termed "an abuse of power" . Police archives, opened in 2003, suggest that evidence was passed to the defence by the Attorney-General Reginald Manningham-Buller in order to allow Adams to avoid the death sentence, then still in force. Home Office pathologist Francis Camps suspected Adams of killing 163 patients in total. Adams was only ever fined for minor offences and struck off the medical register for four years.

Scotland
Reflecting Scotland's own legal system, which differs from that of the rest of the United Kingdom, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) was established in April 1999. All cases accepted by the SCCRC are subjected to a robust and thoroughly impartial review before a decision on whether or not to refer to the High Court of Justiciary is taken.
 * Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahis is in January 2001 convicted for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. His appeal was rejected in March 2002. The SCCRC is reviewing this case.

United States of America

 * May 1886; Chicago, Haymarket Riot: eight union leaders sentenced for a bomb explosion during a demonstration.
 * 1920; Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian anarchists, tried and sentenced to death for the killing of two people during a robbery in 1920. In 1977, Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis issued a proclamation stating that Sacco and Vanzetti had not been treated justly and that "any disgrace should be forever removed from their names."
 * 1931; Scottsboro Boys
 * 1949; Iva Toguri D'Aquino was convicted of treason for allegedly being the notorious 'Tokyo Rose', when federal prosecutors knew she was innocent. Based on the proof of her innocence, President Gerald Ford pardoned her in January 1977.
 * 1954; Dr. Sam Sheppard, American convicted in 1954 of killing his wife in their home; Sheppard maintained she had been killed by an intruder, appealed his case to the Supreme Court. After serving ten years in prison, he was granted a new trial and was finally acquitted. A television series and film (both titled The Fugitive) are widely believed to have been inspired by his story.
 * 1961; Clarence Earl Gideon who was convicted in 1961 of robbery, successfully argued in the Supreme Court in the case Gideon v. Wainwright that his trial was unfair due to his lack of an attorney because of his inability to pay for one. He was given a retrial in 1963 with a free public defender and was acquitted.
 * 1976; Robert Wilkinson, Pennsylvania – Philadelphia County, 1976: police beat him into signing a confession and intimidated witnesses to identify him. He was convicted of arson and murder and sentenced to five consecutive life terms.  He was released later in year after the actual perpetrators were convicted in federal court.  The charges were refilled in 1977; indictments dismissed three months later.  A federal court ruled prosecutor David Berman ignored, withheld and/or destroyed exculpatory evidence -- the actual perpetrators came to him and confessed. In dismissing Wilkinson's later indictment, the court ruled the prosecution was being maintained in bad faith.  Prosecutors still insist he is guilty.
 * 1976; Randall Adams convicted of the 1976 murder of police officer Robert Wood in Texas largely due to testimony from David Ray Harris, who was later executed for a similar murder. Errol Morris's film, The Thin Blue Line explored his case and caused a closer examination, resulting in his release after 12 years in prison -- 4 of them on death row.
 * 1976; William Thomas Zeigler, was convicted for the Christmas Eve 1975 murders of his Wife, Father-In-Law, Mother-In-Law and local man Charlie Mays. The murders occurred at the family's furniture store in Winter Garden, Orange County, Florida. Zeigler remains on death row, awaiting execution, despite convicting evidence that he was not responsible for the killing, highlighted by the 1992 book Fatal Flaw by Phillip Finch.
 * 1979; Gary Dotson, was the first person whose conviction (in 1979) was overturned because of DNA evidence, in 1989.
 * 1981; Clarence Brandley, Montgomery County, Texas, was convicted of capital murder in 1981.  In 1989, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned Brandley's conviction, finding that police and prosecutors, including James Keeshan, failed to investigate leads pertaining to other suspects, suppressed evidence placing other suspects at crime scene at time of crime, failed to call a witness who didn't support the state's case, allowed the perjured testimony of a witness to go uncorrected, and failed to notify Brandley that another man later confessed to the crime.
 * 1982; Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz, Pontotoc County, Oklahoma,were intimidated by police into confessions for the 1982 rape and murder of Debra Sue Carter and convicted. In 1999, DNA evidence exonerated them.
 * 1983; John Gordon Purvis, Broward County, Florida, a severely mentally ill person, despite no physical evidence that he was even at the scene of the murder, was intimidated by police into confessing to the murder of Susan Hamwi and her daughter in 1983.Later, investigators found that Paul Hamwi, Susan Hamwi's ex-husband, had hired Robert Wayne Beckett Sr. and Paul Serio to murder Susan Hamwi and Purvis was exonerated in 1993.
 * 1984; Darryl Hunt, convicted in 1984 of the rape and murder of Deborah Sykes, spent 19 years in prison, 9 of which were served after DNA evidence indicated that he did not commit the rape. Since Hunt was an African-American, the case was heavily charged with the topic of race relations.
 * 1992; Joshua Rivera, 36, was sentenced 37 years for a 1992 murder. On September 19, 1992, Leonard Aquino was in front of a building and was approached by a couple of men who spoke briefly, then opened fire. Mr. Aquino was killed; another man, Paul Peralta, was shot, but survived. Rivera was known to people in the building and had a conviction for gun possession. He was charged and convicted of the crime. In 2006 Jaime Acevedo confessed he drove the real killer to the murder scene, and that Rivera was not involved.
 * 1999; The Tulia incident, in which 46 people, forty who were African-American, were arrested on a drug sting under undercover officer Tom Coleman.  Despite the lack of credible evidence, many pled guilty to receive lesser sentences seeing as they would not receive a fair trial (those convicted received harsher sentences).  Further investigations and other evidence led to the release of most of the "Tulia 46" by 2004, who were further compensated a total of $6,000,000 collectively to avoid further litigation.
 * 1965; Peter Limone, Joseph Salvati and the families of the two other men who died in prison were awarded $101.7 million as compensation for framing by the FBI.

Province of Massachusetts Bay

 * Salem witch trials, malicious gossip gone awry resulted in the killing of 19 innocent people before the sentences were overturned (1692).