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SAN DIEGO - Even though he spent the past eight years in prison, wrongly convicted of kidnapping and raping a teenager in Lemon Grove, Uriah Courtney is considered among the lucky ones. Lucky, because his case caught the attention of the California Innocence Project. Lucky, because evidence in the sexual assault still existed to be retested for DNA. And lucky, because he is one of the few to actually have his conviction overturned, said California Western School of Law professor Justin Brooks, who oversees the Innocence Project. Courtney, 33, was released from Donovan State Prison on May 6 after new tests showed DNA from the victim's clothing matched another felon who lived in the area of the attack.

A 49-year-old Kansas City man convicted in a 1983 rape has been released from prison after DNA testing exonerated him and implicated another man. The Kansas City Star reports here that Robert E. Nelson was freed Wednesday but that prosecutors and the Midwest Innocence Project withheld the announcement until Friday, after the new suspect was arrested. Nelson was twice denied DNA testing before the Midwest Innocence Project took on his case last year and spent more than $40,000 for tests that identified the new suspect. Nelson began serving the 70-year rape sentence in 2006 after finishing earlier sentences for robbery.

A teenager who spent months behind bars wrongly accused of rape after a DNA blunder has spoken of his 'relief, anger and disgust' after the charge was dropped. Adam Scott, 19, was due to stand trial next month in connection with a sex attack on a woman at Plant Hill Park in Blackley. The M.E.N. revealed yesterday how his DNA - taken in connection with a separate matter - had contaminated a sample from the victim while being processed at a laboratory run by LGC Forensics. Mr Scott, from Truro in Cornwall, is now considering taking legal action - and his lawyers are calling for a public inquiry into the blunder, which could lead to other rape and murder cases being reopened.

When a San Jose man charged with murdering a Monte Sereno millionaire was suddenly freed last month, prosecutors acknowledged he had an airtight alibi - he was drunk and unconscious at a hospital when the victim was killed in his mansion miles away. But a mystery remained: How did the DNA of 26-year-old Lukis Anderson - who was so drunk his blood alcohol content was five times the legal limit - end up on the fingernails of slaying victim Raveesh "Ravi" Kumra? Santa Clara County prosecutors answered that question Wednesday, saying the same two paramedics who had treated Anderson for intoxication at a downtown San Jose liquor store in November had responded to Kumra's home just hours later.

Frank Lee Smith died of cancer on death row, just months before DNA exonerated him of raping and murdering an 8-year-old girl in Fort Lauderdale. Now, more than 13 years later, his family's civil lawsuit against the Broward Sheriff's Office and two detectives accused of framing him has finally been settled. Smith's death made him a national symbol because it was the first case in the U.S. that scientifically proved an innocent man had died in prison for a crime he didn't commit. But the financial settlement reached with the Sheriff's Office - on behalf of the agency and retired detectives Richard Scheff and Philip Amabile - is much less than the millions awarded in Broward's other notorious wrongful conviction cases. The civil suit was recently settled for just $340,000 - including attorney fees and legal costs, lawyers Michael Wrubel and James Green told the Sun Sentinel. They filed the lawsuit on behalf of Smith's closest surviving relative, his half-sister Virginia Smith, of Sunrise.

A man who spent 20 years in prison before being cleared of rape and murder charges by DNA evidence has won an initial battle in his bid to hold Lake County police and prosecutors financially responsible. Ruling on motions to dismiss Juan Rivera's lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber let almost every allegation in the suit go forward. The ruling allows Rivera to keep trying to hold prosecutors liable for his ordeal. A successful lawsuit against prosecutors is rare because they enjoy broad legal immunity, experts said. Leinenweber also declined to dismiss a defamation claim, meaning authorities could still be liable for publicly insisting on Rivera's guilt even after DNA indicated he didn't kill 11-year-old Holly Staker in Waukegan in 1992. At issue are quotes from police and a prosecutor reported in the media, including an officer's assertion, reported by The New York Times shortly before Rivera was freed, that he was "guilty as the day is long."

Serving a lengthy prison sentence for a rape he didn't commit, Robert E. Nelson asked for DNA testing to prove his innocence. Twice since 2009, he was turned down. In late 2011, Jackson County prosecutors working through cold cases sought testing for a very different reason: to find Nelson's accomplice. A few months later, as prosecutors were nearly finished with their testing, a judge approved Nelson's newest request.

Andrew Johnson maintained for more than two decades that he wasn't responsible for a 1989 Cheyenne rape charge that landed him a life sentence in prison. Then came the news Tuesday morning: Initial DNA tests confirmed his innocence. Attorneys from the Rocky Mountain Innocence Center have already filed a motion in Wyoming's Laramie County District Court for a new trial on Johnson's behalf. In the early morning hours of June 10, 1989, Cheyenne police received a 911 call from a woman who called for her neighbor.

Original Article04/30/2013 A man was held in prison for three months while wrongly accused of child rape because police refused to carry out a DNA test after reportedly saying it was a waste of public money.[name withheld] is planning to sue pol...

"A postman who has served 17 years in prison for an attempted rape he has always denied has walked free after DNA evidence was heard at the Appeal Court. Victor Nealon, 53, was living in Redditch, Worcestershire, when he was convicted of attacking a woman in January 1997 and jailed for life. New DNA evidence revealed the presence of another man's genetic material, three Appeal Court judges were told. Mr Nealon's barrister said the evidence was "dynamite" for his client."

A Missouri man who spent three decades in prison for rape he didn't commit is now a free man. 49 year old Robert Nelson was convicted in 1984 of rape, sodomy and robbery. He was identified by the rape victim as one of the men involved in the crime. But after the Midwest Innocence Project got involved, Nelson's DNA was tested and showed that he was not the perpetrator.

Texas resident Steven Phillips has had a rough 30 years. In 2009, after 24 years in prison, Phillips was declared innocent of the sexual assault charges that landed him behind bars. DNA evidence showed that sexual offender Sydney Alvin Goodyear, not Phillips, had committed the offenses he was in prison for. His time in jail wrecked much of his life. Phillips spent almost three decades locked up, waiting to for the world to believe his claim of innocence. He and his wife divorced in 1992, 10 years after his sentence began. Phillips missed out on raising his child that was due the same year he was incarcerated.

In 1984, when I was just 21, I was convicted of a rape I did not commit. DNA evidence would subsequently prove my innocence, but not before I spent a decade behind bars. Nothing is more horrifying than prison life when you know you shouldn't be there. You lose more than just your freedom; you lose your very identity. The experience of being wrongfully convicted is truly unusual. Only others who have spent time in prison for a crime they didn't commit can fully appreciate the nightmare.

It was a frighteningly close call for Charles Tubbins. The 23-year-old Buffalo man was already charged with murder and indicted by a grand jury for a crime he did not commit. All that was required for a wholesale miscarriage of justice was for the plea negotiations to begin, presenting Tubbins with the horrifying options of standing trial or admitting to a crime he didn't commit in hopes of a lesser sentence. It didn't come to that because DNA evidence found at the crime scene exonerated Tubbins and implicated another man, Ahkeem R. Huffman. To his credit, Erie County District Attorney Frank A. Sedita moved quickly to dismiss the charges, but the case raises the same issues that have led to lengthy prison sentences for other innocent people in Erie County - issues of which law enforcement and the State Legislature are fully aware, but haven't seen fit to address. Tubbins was ensnared by the same human error that put Anthony Capozzi in prison for rapes he did not commit: witness misidentification. Eyewitness testimony was the only evidence against Tubbins, who, his lawyer noted, has no prior criminal convictions, no history of violence, no prior felony or misdemeanor.

In 1982, Dennis Fritz and Ron Williamson were convicted of a brutal rape and murder in a small town in Oklahoma. The victim was 21-year-old Debra Sue Carter, a waitress at the Coachlight Club. Williamson and Fritz each spent more than 11 years in prison for a crime that DNA evidence later proved they did not commit. Before he went to prison, Fritz was raising his then-12-year-old daughter Elizabeth, alone. He decided she shouldn't visit him in prison, because he sensed she was scared. But, Fritz says, he knew his daughter loved him, and believed in his innocence. Elizabeth was 24 when Fritz got out, and he remembers the moment they saw each other in the visiting room of the county jail, where he'd been transferred prior to his release.

Michael Morton, who spent nearly 25 years in a Texas prison before DNA testing exonerated him of his wife's murder, was married on Saturday in Liberty City, a small town in East Texas. The story of Morton's marriage to Cynthia May Chessman, a divorced mother with three children, has much to do with God and the First Baptist Church Liberty City, according to an article on Sunday in the wedding section of The New York Times, "Ready to Share a Life of Front-Page News."

Kirk Bloodsworth, Advocacy Director of Witness to Innocence and a death row exoneree, will speak on wrongful convictions and the death penalty at an event open to the public at Fort Hays State University on April 17th at 7:00pm. Bloodsworth was accused and convicted of a horrific crime: murdering and raping a nine year-old girl. The evidence used to convict him was the testimony of five eyewitnesses. He spent eight years in prison before DNA evidence proved his innocence. Bloodsworth is one of 142 individuals in the US to be sentenced to death and later found innocent.

KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) - A Jackson County judge has ordered the release of a man wrongfully convicted of rape and robbery in 1984. In a news release issued Friday afternoon, the Midwest Innocence Project said the release occurred on Wednesday. DNA evidence exonerated Robert Nelson, who did not appear at a news conference Friday. He was picked up earlier this week by his sister and her family. "The flaws in our justice system can only be corrected by those who seek the truth," said Laura O'Sullivan, legal director of the Midwest Innocence Project. "Thankfully, the Jackson County prosecutors were interested in seeking the truth. Their cooperation led to Robert Nelson's release and identification of the true perpetrators in this crime. But that is the only silver lining to the tragedy that Robert endured: convicted of a crime he did not commit."

Uriah Courtney could not hold back the tears. After spending eight years in state prison for something he did not do, he was a free man. "When I got out, I felt I could fly," he said. Courtney, along with his mother, father and sister, spoke about his ordeal in front of a throng of cameras at the California Western School of Law, whose students along with the California Innocence Project worked to exonerate him. "I can't believe this day is here," said Courtney's mother, Mary Gambino. Courtney was convicted for the rape and assault of a 16-year-old girl in Lemon Grove in 2004. Eyewitnesses placed his truck or a truck that looked like his at the scene. That plus eyewitness testimony sealed his conviction. New DNA testing, however, pointed to a man who closely resembled Courtney. All charges against Courtney were dropped and his record expunged. When asked about the victim who identified him as the attacker, Courtney said he hoped by now she recognized that he was not the attacker but if not, he hopes one day she will. "I hold no grudge and I'm heartbroken over what happened to her," Courtney said.

"W hen Gerard Richardson stood trial in Somerset County in 1995 for the brutal murder of a 19-year-old Elizabeth woman left for dead in a ditch in Bernards, a forensic dentist testified there was no question it was Richardson who left a bite mark on the woman's body. The testimony of Dr. Ira Titunik, a forensic odontologist, is largely what led to the conviction of Richardson for the February 1994 murder of Monica Reyes and a 30-year prison sentence handed down to him. But last year, analysis of DNA extracted from saliva left in the bite mark proved it wasn't Richardson at all who had bitten the victim, but someone else who has never been identified. Richardson, 49, walked out of a courtroom a free man in December after being wrongfully imprisoned for 19 years. He is the only defendant in New Jersey wrongfully convicted on bite-mark evidence to be exonerated."