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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.

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.

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.

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.

Only 10 On Your Side questioned Hampton's top cop about evidence that put an innocent man behind bars. Commonwealth's Attorney Anton Bell did not hold the office when a jury convicted Johnathon Montgomery of sexual assault, but explained the case in an exclusive interview with WAVY.com Wednesday. Elizabeth Coast originally testified Montgomery raped her when she was 10 years old and he was 14, but later admitted she made up the story. Montgomery spent four years in prison before Coast's confession.

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.

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."

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.

Two Mississippi men spent a combined 30 years in prison for crimes they didn't commit. They were separately charged with sexually assaulting and murdering two 3-year-old girls - in two separate crimes - two years apart. The pathologist who conducted both autopsies said he suspected the girls had been bitten. They were innocent.

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.

A disgruntled man is accused of filing a false police report about a rape threat and possible hostage situation that shut down a Gresham neighborhood early Monday morning. Police said the report came in around 4:15 a.m. The caller said an armed man ordered him out of his apartment at gunpoint and threatened to rape his girlfriend. Police prepared for a possible standoff and surrounded a complex on Southeast 182nd Avenue near Stark Street, shutting down roads in the area for several blocks.

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.

Lee Finlayson, a captain with the Grand Rapids fire department, was arrested and locked up for two weeks after his girlfriend filed criminal charges against him including rape. The charges were later dropped after evidence that the text messages used as evidence against him were fake. Finlayson said he lost two weeks of his life and spent $10,000 trying to prove his innocence. As firefighters go, Captain Finlayson is considered one of the best. He was voted the 2011 Grand Rapids firefighter of the year. In September however, he was arrested stemming from a warrant out of Pennsylvania. "You are given absolutely zero information," said Finlayson. "Nobody will talk to you."

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.

A woman has been fined £80 for wasting police time after making up a false allegation of attempted rape in Swindon. The 21-year-old claimed she had been grabbed by a man as she walked around Liden Lagoon earlier in the month. A man matching the description given by the woman was later arrested. Police said the woman had now admitted to making up the entire incident and she had received a fixed penalty fine for the offence. Det Insp Mark Garrett said: "Wiltshire Police take any reports of sexual assaults incredibly seriously and will use all available resources to bring perpetrators of these crimes to justice. "This inquiry has taken up a lot of police time and resources but also resulted in an innocent man being arrested on suspicion of a very serious crime."

Just one more of the growing reasons why the online registry should be taken offline! Even if the kid did what is claimed, he doesn't deserve to be assaulted by anybody!11/29/2012By GAIL CAMERON A battered paperboy told last nigh...

False confessions play a major role in two recent documentaries about wrongful convictions. West of Memphis examines the case of three young Arkansas men who were locked up for the horrific 1993 murders of three 8-year-old boys. Perhaps the most powerful piece of the prosecution's case was a confession by Jessie Misskelley describing in graphic detail how he and his two co-defendants beat, raped and mutilated the boys. The documentary, however, showed how the police could - after hours of intense interrogation, heavy with leading questions - manipulate and extract a false story from Misskelley, an unsophisticated young man with a low IQ.

Courts and police in the nation's capital will change how they conduct lineups of suspects, when they notify defendants about informants and how long they retain criminal trial records, all in response to errors that have put innocent people in prison.

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 STUDENT whose false rape claim led to an innocent man being arrested and held for nine hours walked free from court yesterday. Hannah Byron, 20, was told by a judge at Teesside Crown Court that she had avoided an immediate jail sentence "by a short whi