wrongful imprisonment
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Two Black Men Who Spent Nearly 18 Years in a Michigan Prison for a Crime They Didn't Commit File $160 Million Lawsuit
It’s not always easy being a writer whose main focus is documenting racism and racial injustice in America. It’s a job that consistently requires the covering of sad and often infuriating stories. Among the hardest stories to cover are those that involve Black people spending years and even decades in prison for crimes they didn’t…
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Imprisoned in Michigan for Nearly Four Decades, Walter Forbes Is Freed After Witness Recants Statement
Walter Forbes, a 63-year-old Black man in Michigan, is now free to spend the holidays with his family for the first time in over 37 years. Forbes was recently released from his decadeslong incarceration after the witness who helped imprison him recanted her original testimony this year and acknowledged it was a lie, due to…
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Black Man Who Spent 25 Years Incarcerated for a Murder He Didn’t Commit Has Been Exonerated
A Black man from Queens has been released from prison after being incarcerated for 25 years for a crime he didn’t commit. According to ABC 7, Jaythan Kendrick was exonerated on Thursday and released from incarceration. Kendrick, who is now 62, maintained his innocence from the start, and it took years of support from his…
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Federal Jury Awards $5.2M to Chicago Man Who Spent 31 Years In Prison After Forced Confession
Imagine spending 31 years in jail for a crime you were forced to confess to. That’s a good chunk of your life span spent incarcerated due to being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Unfortunately, that was reality for Stanley Wrice. According the Chicago Sun-Times, an almost week and a half long civil…
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Man Convicted of Double Murder 25 Years Ago Is Free After New Evidence Emerges
It’s an unfortunate reality that failings in the American judicial system often result in people being imprisoned who don’t deserve to be. These failings more often than not affect black men. While it’s long overdue, justice has finally been served to a man wrongfully convicted by the system. CBS News reports that after 25 years,…
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San Francisco Man Gets $13M Settlement After Being Falsely Framed for Murder by Police
A San Francisco man will receive a $13.1-million settlement after being framed by police and spending years in prison for a 2007 murder he did not commit. As a young man, Jamal Trulove was tried and convicted in the killing of his friend Seu Kuka in a San Francisco housing project. A state appeals court…
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Louisiana Man Exonerated by DNA Evidence After Serving Nearly 38 Years in Prison for Rape He Didn’t Commit
Malcolm Alexander, who was just 21 years old when he was wrongfully convicted of aggravated rape and sentenced to life in Louisiana State Penitentiary (Angola), was released from prison Monday after Jefferson Parish Judge June Darensburg overturned his conviction. Darensburg made her decision after a reinvestigation by the Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Office determined that…
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Jury Awards Man $15 Million for Spending 20 Years in Prison for a Crime He Didn’t Commit
A federal jury awarded a Baltimore man $15 million after he spent more than two decades wrongly incarcerated for murder. Sabein Burgess sued the Baltimore Police Department and two detectives for his wrongful conviction for the 1994 murder of his then-girlfriend Michelle Dyson, according to the Baltimore Sun. Burgess was released from prison in 2015…
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Black Man in Louisiana to Be Freed From Prison After Judge Overturned 1974 Conviction, but He Still Has to Pay $2,000 Bail
Updated Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2017, 5:35 p.m. EST: Many of you have asked how you can help Wilbert Jones. This fundraising page, which the Innocence Project New Orleans sent us, has been set up to help Jones “rebuild his life after 45 years of wrongful incarceration.” Earlier: Wilbert Jones was 19 years old when police…
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Detroit Man Wrongly Imprisoned for 25 Years, Claims in New Lawsuit That Police Deliberately Set Him Up to Take the Fall
Doctored evidence caused one Detroit man to serve 25 years in prison for a murder. Now that man, 51-year-old Desmond Ricks, is filing a lawsuit seeking more than $100 million, claiming that officers deliberately framed him by switching out bullets to convict him. According to the Associated Press, Ricks was released from prison in May…