Another Case.

From the Innocence Project:

15th Person Cleared by DNA in Dallas Charles Chatman was released from state custody Jan. 3 in Dallas, after serving nearly 27 years in prison for a rape he didn't commit. He is the 15th Dallas man to be cleared by DNA testing after being wrongfully convicted. After his hearing, he hugged Judge John Creuzot, who advocated for testing in the case.

For those of your not familiar, the Innocence Project is a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people most often through DNA testing. Their documentary “After Innocence” is really worth seeking out.

TMT is so thankful for the Innocence Project, that they are out there. Frankly, it seems wrongful incarceration is a thing of our current system.

Some sobering facts:

• Texas leads the nation with 29 exonerations. New York is not much better. 23. Neither state has criminal justice reform commissions.
  

• 15 of the 210 people so far exonerated through DNA in the US served time on death row

• Mistaken eyewitness identification testimony was a factor in 77 percent of post-conviction DNA exoneration cases in the U.S., making it the leading cause of these wrongful convictions. Of that 77 percent, 48 percent of cases where race is known involved cross-racial eyewitness identification. Studies have shown that people are less able to recognize faces of a different race than their own.