A judge has overturned the double-murder conviction of a man who spent 18 years in prison.
The judge found that police investigators knew that the prosecution’s “star witness” lied on the stand about being compensated for testimony, but they did nothing to intervene.
Caramad Conley has been imprisoned since 1992, convicted of an allegedly gang-related double killing. A Superior court judge ruled Conley was denied a fair trial, making his conviction unconstitutional.
The same “star witness” was involved in other cases ultimately overturned by the courts with monetary compensation awarded to the wrongly imprisoned men.
Other recent wrongly convicted cases include Robert Lee Stinson, convicted in 1985 in the death of a 63-year-old Milwaukee woman. A judge released him from prison in 2009 after new DNA evidence exonerated him. The state of Wisconsin is expected to compensate Stinson $115,000 for his 23-year imprisonment. Stinson said the money will be his first income since being released from prison.
Still another case involved Maurice Caldwell, who spent 21 years imprisoned for a second-degree murder conviction based on the testimony of a single eyewitness. Another convicted criminal eventually took responsibility for the murder. The Northern California Innocence Project at Santa Clara University School of Law presented Caldwell’s case to the court. Caldwell’s conviction was overturned because his lawyer failed to properly conduct an investigation of the case.
