geneza: List of wrongful convictions in the United States

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This list of wrongful convictions in the United States includes people who have been legally exonerated, including people whose convictions have been overturned or vacated, and who have not been retried because the charges were dismissed by the states. It also includes some historic cases of people who have not been formally exonerated (by a formal process such as has existed in the United States since the mid-20th century) but who historians believe are factually innocent. Generally, this means that research by historians has revealed original conditions of bias or extrajudicial actions that related to their convictions and/or executions. Crime descriptions marked with an asterisk (*) indi…

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This list contains names of people who were found guilty of capital crimes and placed on death row but later had their convictions overturned. Many of these exonerees' sentences were overturned by acquittal or pardon, but some of those listed were exonerated posthumously. The state listed is that in which the conviction occurred, the year is that of release and the case is that which overturned the conviction. This list includes: Former death row inmates who were conditionally pardoned, had their sentences commuted, or had their cases dismissed, and were subsequently exonerated. Death row inmates who were legally exonerated, but not proven factually innocent. Death row inmates who remain in…

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European exonerations: Factors and frequencies of wrongful convictions in Europe.. Wrongful convictions represent a profound failure of criminal justice systems with severe individual and societal consequences such as, undermining public trust in the justice system, allowing true perpetrators to remain free, and inflicting lasting harm on exonerees and their families. Despite growing international attention to this issue, systematic empirical data on wrongful convictions in Europe remains limited. This article presents a descriptive analysis of the 144 exoneration cases documented in the European Registry of Exonerations (EUREX) as of May 2026. The dataset includes exoneration cases from ac…

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Characteristics of exonerated cases of child sexual abuse.. Introduction Exonerations provide insight into how the criminal justice system sometimes fails. Exonerations in child sexual abuse (CSA) cases may be of particular interest as it is often impossible to tell if a crime has truly occurred, many cases lack corroborative evidence, and children's developmental capacity can at times evoke credibility concerns. Methods Using the National Registry of Exonerations, we examined every known exonerated case of CSA in the United States ( N = 339). Results We found these cases were similar to substantiated cases in many ways. Case features included a single victim (67.8%), victim recantation (49…

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Peter Sullivan (born 1956/57) is a British man who was wrongfully convicted of the murder of Diane Sindall in 1987. He served 38 years in prison before being exonerated by DNA evidence on 13 May 2025, at the age of 68. He is the longest-serving known victim of a miscarriage of justice in British history. As of 2026, the identity of the murderer is unknown, with him believed to be a serial rapist and murderer who operated around the area, known as The Beast.

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Thomas Haynesworth (born March 21, 1965) is a resident of Richmond, Virginia, who served 27 years in state prison as a result of four wrongful convictions for crimes for which he was exonerated in 2011. Haynesworth was arrested in Richmond at the age of 18 in 1984 after a woman identified him as her attacker. He was convicted of four violent rapes in the East End of the city. He was sentenced to a total of 84 years in prison. Haynesworth maintained his innocence throughout the years of incarceration. Based on DNA and other evidence, the crimes for which he was convicted are now believed to have been committed by a neighbor who resembled Haynesworth. In 2009, new state laws and procedures al…

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In the United States, capital punishment (also known as the death penalty) is a legal penalty in 27 states (of which two, Oregon and Wyoming, have no inmates sentenced to death), throughout the country at the federal level, and in American Samoa. It is also a legal penalty for some military offenses. Capital punishment has been abolished in the other 23 states and in the federal capital, Washington, D.C. It is constitutionally permitted only for murder, with permissibility for use for crimes against the state not having been legally decided. Although it is a legal penalty in 27 states, only 21 of them have authority to execute death sentences, with the other 6 subject to moratoriums. There…