In the past 23 years, more than 2,000 people were falsely convicted of a serious crime and exonerated, a newly compiled database revealed.
The University of Michigan Law School and the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law compiled the information and found nine out of 10 of the exonerations were men and half were African-Americans, reported the Associated Press.
About 50 percent of the 873 exonerations were homicide cases, including 101 death sentences. More than one-third of the cases were sexual assaults, the report discovered.
In half of the 873 exonerations studied in detail, the most common factor leading to false convictions was perjured testimony or false accusations. Forty-three percent of the cases involved mistaken eyewitness identification, and 24 percent of the cases involved false or misleading forensic evidence.
In two out of three homicides, perjury or false accusation was the most common factor leading to false convictions.
In four out of five sexual assaults, mistaken eyewitness identification was the leading cause of false convictions.
DNA evidence led to exoneration in nearly one-third of the homicides and in nearly two-thirds of the sexual assaults.
The registry excludes at least 1,170 other defendants whose convictions were thrown out beginning in 1995 when 13 police scandals were uncovered nationwide. In all the cases, “police officers fabricated crimes, usually by planting drugs or guns on innocent defendants,” the report finds.
