[But experts and advocates arent surprised: They say U.S. prisons
are filled with potentially thousands of innocent people. ]
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RONNIE LONG’S WRONGFUL CONVICTION IS SHOCKING — UNLESS YOU STUDY
THE US JUSTICE SYSTEM  
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N'dea Yancey-Bragg, Thao Nguyen and Krystal Nurse
January 12, 2024
USA Today
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_ But experts and advocates aren't surprised: They say U.S. prisons
are filled with potentially thousands of innocent people. _

Lawyers for Ronnie Long, wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for 44
years, say he reached a $25 million combined settlement announced on
January 9th with a central North Carolina city and the state of North
Carolina., Peter Weinberger/AP

 

The wrongful conviction of Ronnie Long might appear shocking: No
physical evidence, false testimony, a conflicting description of the
suspect – then 44 years in prison for Long.

But experts and advocates aren't surprised: They say U.S. prisons are
filled with potentially thousands of innocent people. While Long's
case is particularly egregious, experts told USA TODAY some of the
factors that led to his imprisonment are still causing wrongful
convictions today.

The 68-year-old Black man, who is set to receive a historic $25
million settlement,
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convicted by an all-white jury for the rape of a white woman,
according to his attorneys. Evidence that could have exonerated Long
was not shared with the defense and police officers gave false
testimony during the trial, according to Duke Law School's Wrongful
Convictions Clinic
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Despite Long not matching the victim's original description of her
assailant, the prosecution relied on the victim’s identification of
Long as their main piece of evidence.

"When you take a look at the role that race and official misconduct
played in Ronnie Long's wrongful conviction, this is unfortunately
common practice in our criminal legal system," said Vanessa Potkin,
the Innocence Project's director of special litigation. "So it's not
an outlier."

How many wrongfully convicted people are freed in the US every year?

Since 1989, more than 3,400 people have been exonerated of crimes they
did not commit, according to the National Registry of Exonerations
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Those wrongfully convicted people spent more than 31,000 years in
prison.

The number of exonerations has also grown by almost 70% since 2017 –
3,200 compared to 1,900 – the registry said in its 2022 report
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wrongful convictions in the United States.

Maurice Possley, a senior researcher at the National Registry of
Exonerations, said the recent uptick is partly driven by cases like
that of Chicago police Sgt. Ronald Watts
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who charged people in and around a since-demolished housing project
with crimes they did not commit. Since 2016, prosecutors have moved to
vacate at least 226 convictions and juvenile adjudications connected
to Watts and his team.

Potkin said this increase is also likely caused by the growth of
organizations like the Innocence Project and specialized units in
prosecutors' offices, which directly address this issue
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Still, she said, "exonerations are not keeping pace with the problem
by any means."

[Alfred Swinton, middle, walks out of Connecticut Supreme Court in
June 2017 with Innocence Project lawyers Chris Fabricant, left, and
Vanessa Potkin after a Superior Court judge approved a new trial in
his conviction in the 1991 murder of Carla Terry. After serving 18
years, Swinton, 68, was released on a promise to appear in court.]

Afred Swinton, center, walks out of Connecticut Supreme Court in June
2017 with Innocence Project lawyers Chris Fabricant, left, and Vanessa
Potkin after a Superior Court judge approved a new trial in his
conviction in the 1991 murder of Carla Terry.  After serving 18 year,
Swinton, 68, was released on a promise to appear in court.  Mark
Mirko/Hartford Courant via AP

How many innocent people are still in prison?

It's almost impossible to know how many of the nearly 2 million
people imprisoned in the United States
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innocent, said Jamie Lau, a clinical professor at Duke Law School and
supervising attorney of the school's Wrongful Convictions Clinic.

In 2011, Mother Jones estimated that 1% of the U.S. prison population
was falsely convicted,
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extrapolation based on known DNA exonerations in the U.S. since the
late 1980s. That number may be even higher for people who have been
sentenced to death: Researchers in 2014 estimated that if all
defendants facing a death sentence remained on death row
indefinitely, at least 4.1% would be exonerated.
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"Whether it's even 1%, it's a staggering high number of people that I
just think anybody that does this work finds totally unacceptable,"
said Lau, who served as Long’s lead attorney during the appeal that
led to his exoneration. "Hearing that number, if you think of the
prison population and just 1% of that population, we're talking about
thousands of people wrongly incarcerated."

What have been some of the most egregious recent wrongful conviction
cases?

◾ In December, Glynn Simmons was exonerated in Oklahoma after
spending 50 years in prison for murder. Simmons' attorneys said
evidence showed that the eyewitness, who had survived being shot in
the head during the robbery, did not actually initially identify
Simmons.

◾ Also in December, Marvin Haynes, 36, had his 2004 murder
conviction vacated
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Minnesota after serving 19 years of a life sentence. Hennepin County
Judge William Koch said in his ruling the evidence was unreliable and
"constitutionally improper." Koch added Haynes didn't match the
description of the suspect given by primary eyewitnesses as he was
significantly younger, shorter and weighed less.

◾ In September, Gerardo Cabanillas, of California, was released
from prison after serving 28 years
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a life sentence for a 1995 sexual assault, robbery and kidnapping.
Police couldn’t find evidence linking him to the crime and
prosecutors used a coerced confession and eyewitness identifications.

◾ In August, Rosa Jimenez was exonerated
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years after a state appeals court said false and misleading
testimonies led to her murder conviction. Jimenez was sentenced for
the death of a 21-month-old who died months after ingesting a mass of
paper towels.

[Gerardo Cabanillas was released after serving 27 years in prison due
to a wrongful conviction.]

Gerardo Cabanillas was released after serving 27 years in prison due
to a wrongful conviction.  Courtesy Laurence Colletti and Legal Talk
Network

Why are people wrongfully convicted?

The National Registry of Exonerations tracks six common contributing
factors that lead to a wrongful conviction: official misconduct,
perjury or false accusation, false or misleading forensic evidence,
false confession, mistaken witness identification and inadequate legal
defense. Possley said the most common factors are official misconduct
and perjury.

Black people comprise 53% of the 3,200 exonerations listed in the
registry, making African Americans seven times more likely than their
white counterparts to be falsely convicted of serious crimes,
according to the organization's report. Potkin said that racial
disparities in wrongful conviction mirror disparities seen throughout
the criminal justice system including policing, jury selection and
pretrial detention.

"It's just harder for people of color to get relief and easier to be
wrongfully convicted in the first place," she said.

_N'dea Yancey-Bragg is a breaking news reporter on USA TODAY's Social
Justice team who covers policing, law enforcement reform and fallout
from the racial justice protest movement.  Thao Nguyen is a Breaking
News Reporter.  Krystal Nurse is a Social Justice breaking news
reporter for USA TODAY covering criminal justice and abortion._

_Contributing: Grace Hauck, USA TODAY_

* wrongful convictions
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* judicial misconduct
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