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Clinton Kanu spent 27 years in prison for a murder he did not commit in Nigeria.
His problems began when he tried to help solve a case involving theft and a dispute over family land.
When the man connected to the dispute died, someone accused Kanu of murdering him, even though he was more than 100km from the scene of the crime.
In 1992, he was arrested.
Kanu was sentenced to death by hanging or by firing squad.
In 2015, his case went to Nigeria’s supreme court, which reviewed the scant details of the original trial.
It had been a skeletal case, only one witness, the brother of the complainant, claimed he saw Kanu at the scene of the crime, whereas two witnesses were called to testify that Kanu had not been there.
In April 2019, the supreme court ruled that there was no evidence against Kanu. He was discharged and acquitted.
“‘Nearly 70 percent of the country’s approximately 74,000 prison inmates are awaiting trial.’
Richard PhilipsA Michigan man who spent over 45 years in prison for a murder he did not commit received $1.5 million in compensation.
Richard Phillips, 73, was exonerated in 2018, which made him one of the longest-serving exoneree in the United States, after a co-defendant told the parole board in 2010 that Phillips had absolutely no role in the 1971 murder.
Under Michigan law, exonerees are entitled to $50,000 per year.
After his release, Phillips sold paintings he did while in prison to make ends meet.
Ronnie LongA Black man was freed from a North Carolina prison on Thursday, 27th August, 2020 after serving 44 years for a crime he maintains he didn’t commit.
Ronnie Long, wearing a dark three-piece suit, red tie and a hat, walked out of prison, wheeling his few belongings behind him.
He raised his hands to the crowd and threw his arms around a loved one before addressing reporters.
“It’s been a long road,” Long said. “But it’s over with. It’s over with now.”
Wearing a mask that said “Free Ronnie Long,” he credited his advocates and loved ones for persevering through the long legal battle.
Long, now 64, was accused of raping a White woman.
An all-White jury found him guilty of rape and burglary in 1976 and him sentenced to life in prison.
His conviction was vacated Thursday after the state of North Carolina filed a motion in federal court seeking to do so.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/28/us/ronnie-long-nc-wrongful-conviction-trnd/index.html
Friday, April 3, 2016, 9:30am, Anthony Ray Hinton walked out of the Jefferson County Jail in Birmingham, Alabama as a free man after almost 30years.“The sun does shine,” he said as he was embraced by family and friends.
One of the longest serving death row prisoners in history and among the longest serving condemned prisoners to be freed after presenting evidence of innocence, Mr. Hinton was the 152nd person exonerated from death row since 1983.
30 years ago, Mr. Hinton was arrested and charged with two capital murders based solely on the assertion that a revolver taken from his mother’s home was the gun used in both murders and in a third uncharged crime.
EJI attorneys engaged three of the nation’s top firearms examiners who testified in 2002 that the revolver could not be matched to crime evidence.
State prosecutors never questioned the new findings but nonetheless refused to re-examine the case or concede error.
After 12 more years of litigation, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the lower courts, and a new trial was granted.
The judge finally dismissed the charges after prosecutors said that scientists at the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences tested the evidence and confirmed that the crime bullets cannot be matched to the Hinton weapon.
See Just Mercy, 2019
Craig Richard Coley was jailed in 1978 for the murder of his ex-partner and her son, but consistently maintained his innocence.He was released in November 2017 after DNA evidence cleared him during a review of the case.
He served 39years, the
Coley won $21m for false murder charge
0Conviction based on Dream
On a summer night in 1987, a Denver woman was out drinking with three men, and after saying goodnight and returning home, was severely beaten and raped in her apartment.
Her facial bones were broken and she lost sight in one eye.
The victim first told police it was too dark to identify her attacker, then said it was one of the three men.
‘A day and a half later, she said it came to her in a dream that the assailant was her neighbor, Clarence Moses-El.’
Based on that, Moses-El, who said he was innocent, was convicted of rape and assault.
Decades later, a Denver judge overturned the convictions after serving 28 years of his 48-year prison sentence, Moses-El was released on bond.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/24/clarence-moses-el-free-denver-rape-case
Ricky Jackson, Ronnie Bridgeman, and Wiley BridgemanRicky Jackson (born 1957), Ronnie Bridgeman (born 1957) and Wiley Bridgeman (born 1954) are African Americans who were wrongfully convicted of murder as young men in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1975 and sentenced to death.
Their sentences were commuted to life imprisonment in 1977.
They were imprisoned for decades before each of the three was exonerated in late 2014.
Jackson and Wiley Bridgeman were released on parole after spending 28years.
According to the National Registry of Exonerations, Jackson was imprisoned for 39 years on this wrongful conviction.
Joseph Sledge Jr. (born 1942) is an American man who was wrongly convicted of the murders of two women, Josephine and Aileen Davis, for which he was imprisoned for over 36 years before being exonerated by new DNA evidence.His case also represents one of the longest duration of incarceration for a case that has been overturned by DNA evidence.
The Central Park jogger case (events also referenced as the Central Park Five case) was a criminal case in the United States over the aggravated assault and rape of a white female jogger (later publicly identified as Trisha Meili), who was found in critical condition, during a series of reported attacks against no fewer than eight other people in Manhattan’s Central Park, on the night of April 19, 1989.Five youth defendants were convicted of assaulting the jogger, and served out their sentences, before all were exonerated, following the confession of another inmate, Matias Reyes, for the crime.
Captured in a movie.
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Viewing 8 posts - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
Viewing 8 posts - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)