WP: Largest compilation of exonerations ever finds over 2,000 falsely convicted over past 23 years

[MrSilverMaC]

WASHINGTON — More than 2,000 people who were falsely convicted of serious crimes have been exonerated in the United States in the past 23 years, according to a new archive compiled at two universities.

There is no official record-keeping system for exonerations of convicted criminals in the country, so academics set one up. The new national registry, or database, painstakingly assembled by the University of Michigan Law School and the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law, is the most complete list of exonerations ever compiled....

...The registry excludes at least 1,170 additional defendants. Their convictions were thrown out starting in 1995 amid the periodic exposures of 13 major police scandals around the country. In all the cases, police officers fabricated crimes, usually by planting drugs or guns on innocent defendants....

...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...

More at link

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/largest-compilation-of-exonerations-ever-finds-over-2000-falsely-convicted-over-past-23-years/2012/05/20/gIQAV7pycU_story.html