Exonerated Prisoners 2012: Found Innocent After Serving Time

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Exonerated Prisoners: Found Innocent After Serving Time

When a crime is committed, people turn to our legal system for justice. Unfortunately, the law-enforcement and prosecutors and juries responsible for bringing wrongdoers to account do not always convict the correct person. A jury can only consider the evidence that is presented to it. Lack of and improper forensic testing, false identifications by witnesses and informants, and forced confessions have put an unknown number of Americans behind bars, people who by our constitutional standards don’t belong there.

DNA testing has been an acceptable science only since 1989. Since then, 301 wrongly locked up people in the United States have been exonerated by DNA evidence. These victims of a broken system have spent a combined 4,036 years incarcerated for crimes they did not commit, and only 65 percent of them have been compensated for their time spent in a cell.

One positive is that DNA access laws allow post-conviction DNA testing by defense teams throughout the United States, except in one state—its panhandle sticks out like a sore thumb. Unfortunately, many states still lack evidence preservation laws.

Click through the gallery to see six wrongly caged humans who were set free this year….

Photo: The Innocence Project

Brian Banks

In 2002, Brian Banks had it all. Standing at 6'2 and weighing 235 pounds, the 17-year-old Long Beach Polytechnic High School star had a promising football career ahead of him. He had verbally committed to play for the USC Trojans.

Banks’s dreams were dashed when high-school student Wanetta Gibson accused him of raping and kidnapping her.

Banks, potentially facing 41 years in prison, plead no contest at the advice of his attorney.

After Banks had served six years in prison and registered as a sex offender, he was added by Gibson as a friend on Facebook. Gibson admitted to Banks and a private investigator that her testimony was entirely false, but feared having to pay back $1.5 million she had been awarded in a civil lawsuit against her high school, where the falsified attack had supposedly taken place.

After being exonerated, Banks signed with the Las Vegas Locomotives of the UFL and hopes to revive his dreams of playing professional football.

Photo: YouTube

Juan Rivera

On October 30, 1992, Juan Rivera was charged with the rape and murder of 11-year-old babysitter Holly Staker.

Despite the fact that Rivera, a 19-year-old special education student who was on electronic home monitoring at the time of the crime, was interrogated for four days and had to have his confession rewritten because of its inaccuracies, he was brought to trial. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison on November 19, 1993.

After having the Illinois Appellate Court reverse his conviction and demand a new trial, Rivera was convicted by the eyewitness testimony of one of the children Holly Staker was babysitting, despite the fact that the child was 2 years old at the time of the crime.

Rivera was retried again in 2009, when it was discovered his DNA was not a match, but was still convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the third time. In 2012, with a better attorney leading his appeal, the prosecution decided to drop charges. Rivera was released on January 6, 2012, after 20 years spent in prison.

Photo: YouTube

Sedrick Courtney

On April 15, 1996, Shemita Greer was in her home in the Park Plaza East neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma, when two men in masks kicked down her door, tied her up, beat her and ransacked her apartment. Greer suffered brain damage from the attack. Greer identified Sedrick Courtney, a man who had lived in her old apartment complex the year before, as one of her attackers.

Courtney claimed that he was at an unemployment training workshop and with family on the day of the assault.

Hair samples from the attackers were found at the scene of the crime, but the technology to test hair samples (mitochondrial DNA testing) was not available in 1996. Courtney had a 2001 appeal to test the hair turned down, with Tulsa police claiming the hair evidence had been destroyed. After being repeatedly pressed for tests, Tulsa police found the supposedly missing evidence, none of which matched Courtney’s hair.

He was released July 19, 2012, after spending 15 years in prison. He has not been compensated for his time in prison.

Photo: YouTube

David Wiggins

On July 23, 1988, David Wiggins was arrested by police in Tarrent County, Texas, as a passenger in a stolen vehicle. The next day Wiggins was put into a lineup where a 14-year-old rape victim identified him as her attacker, saying that he looked familiar.

Wiggins was charged with the rape, despite maintaining that he did not commit the crime.

DNA evidence was collected by a rape kit, but the amount was insufficient to perform DNA tests. There was no physical evidence tying Wiggins with the crime. While imprisoned, Wiggins was repeatedly denied requests for DNA tests.

Finally in 2012, DNA testing confirmed his DNA was not a match to the sample on the victim’s clothes. Wiggins was released on August 24, 2012, after serving 24 years, half of his life, in prison.

Photo: WFAA

Damon Thibodeaux

Damon Thibodeaux was brought in for questioning and interrogation in connection with the murder and possible sexual assault of his 14-year-old half cousin near New Orleans, Louisiana.

After being interrogated for eight hours, and despite incorrectly guessing the color of the cord used to strangle the victim, Thibodeaux confessed and was charged with murder and aggravated rape. The confession—and being identified by individuals as the person pacing in the distance near the crime scene—was enough to secure a conviction. Thibodeaux was sentenced to death and was held in Angola State Prison leading up to his impending execution.

In 2007, DNA tests were ordered for the blood found on the murder weapon. The blood did not match Thibodeaux’s, and reexamination showed his confession to be entirely inconsistent with the crime. Jefferson Parish Prosecutors were convinced Thibodeaux did not commit the killing, and the prisoner was released on September 28, 2012, becoming the 300th person exonerated by DNA testing.

Photo: YouTube

Robert Dewey

On June 4, 1994, while investigating a leak coming from an upstairs apartment in Palisade, Colorado, 19-year-old Jacie Taylor was found sexually assaulted and strangled in her bathtub. A police investigation led to Robert Dewey, who friends of Jacie Taylor said she feared. Dewey avoided police and was found in possession of a t-shirt soaked in grease, oil and blood.

The best blood testing available at the time confirmed that the blood matched Dewey, Taylor and 45 percent of the human population.

While semen found on a blanket, and skin beneath the fingernails of the victim did not match Dewey, he was still charged, with the prosecutor arguing, he must of had an accomplice.

Robert Dewey was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. With better DNA testing available, the blood on the shirt was confirmed to be entirely Dewey’s and the DNA evidence found at the scene came back as a match, for another man already serving a life sentence for a home invasion and rape.

Dewey was cleared of all charges and released on April 30, 2012. He has not been compensated for his time in prison.

Photo: YouTube

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Families are charged extraordinarily high phone rates to keep in touch with loved ones in prison. Help ensure fair costs so everyone has the right to call home.

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FCC Chairman Genachowski

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Full Petition Text

Dear Chairman Genachowski,

Our communities urgently need federal oversight of interstate prison phone call rates to ensure fair costs for friends and families who have loved ones in prison.

Most companies with contracts to provide phone services to prisons charge extraordinarily high phone rates. It can cost a mom more than 18 dollars for a 15-minute phone call with her son in prison. Families are forced to pay these excessive rates or give up staying connected. Our communities are harmed because prisoners who are unable to maintain family ties, are less likely to succeed post-release. Also, an inmates' ability to stay in contact with family members by phone is an effective and cost-efficient way to drastically reduce the chances of recidivism. There are over 2.3 million people incarcerated in the United States with 40% at risk of returning to prison, and our epidemic of incarceration costs taxpayers .4 billion a year.Make this more affordable for everyone — the taxpayers and the families — by regulating interstate prison phone call rates now.

Approve the Wright Petition, CC Docket No. 96-128, which requests the FCC to establish benchmark rates for all interstate inmate calling services no higher than 0.25 per minute for collect calls. The Wright Petition, CC Docket No. 96-128, has been pending before the FCC for 8 years. Why are we waiting act on this important issue?

About The Petition

The FCC can address this nationwide problem by passing the Wright Petition (CC Docket No. 96-128) and setting standards to ensure consumers who must use prison phone services have options for communications affordability and access.

The Wright Petition was a set of recommendations filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 2003 by a group of prisoners, family members, and their allies seeking federal action to stop the prison phone overcharging. Many organizations contacted the FCC to urge the agency to accept the recommendations of the Wright Petition.

The Wright Proposal refers to an additional set of filings made to the FCC in 2007, after the agency still hadn’t acted on the original petition. The petitioners sent an alternative proposal to the FCC, asking for reasonable limits on the rates a company can charge for an interstate call from prison and cheaper debit calling options. They are still waiting for a response.

Timeline

On February 16, 2000, the Wright v. CCA complaint was filed in the D.C. District Court.

On August 22, 2001, District Judge Gladys Kessler referred the case to the Federal Communications Commission, under the doctrine of primary jurisdiction.

On October 31, 2003, Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed a petition for rulemaking with the FCC. The petition sought restructuring of long distance inmate calling services to introduce competition.

In March of 2007, CCR and its partners filed an alternative rulemaking proposal requesting that the FCC establish benchmark rates for all interstate inmate calling services no higher than ><.20 per minute for debit calling and ><.25 per minute for collect calling.

Thank You for Signing!

Your signature has been added to the petition and because of you, we are one person stronger in our fight to end predatory prison phone rates. Please share this petition and encourage others to act now. Thank you!

Related stories on TakePart

• Death Row’s Damon Thibodeaux Is 300th Person Set Free by DNA

• Life Without Parole: A Juvenile Injustice System (Infographic)

• Does Your State Sentence Youth to Life Without Parole?

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Andrew Freeman is a California native with a degree in history from UCLA. He’s covered a wide range of topics for TakePart, but is particularly interested in politics and policy. Email Andrew |@natureofdabeast | TakePart.com

Exonerated Prisoners 2012: Found Innocent After Serving Time

Exonerated Prisoners: Found Innocent After Serving Time

Photo: The Innocence Project

Brian Banks

Photo: YouTube

Juan Rivera

Photo: YouTube

Sedrick Courtney

Photo: YouTube

David Wiggins

Photo: WFAA

Damon Thibodeaux

Photo: YouTube

Robert Dewey

Photo: YouTube

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