Not Guilty: 6 Cases Of Wrongful Convictions [PHOTOS] - Page 3
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No matter how many economic droughts that the U.S. goes through, prison is a multi-billion-dollar business that always makes money. More than 2 million people are currently locked up in state and federal facilities across the 50 states, and a good portion of those offenders have claimed innocence.
Included in that list was Glenn Ford. The now 64-year-old spent 30 years behind bars for a murder he didn’t commit. On Tuesday (March 12), Ford was released from death row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary. He was falsely accused in the 1983 shooting death of 58-year-old shop owner Isadore Rozeman.
An all white jury convicted Ford without witnesses, or evidence, and promptly sent him off to die an innocent man. Now that he’s been exonerated Ford is among the names of wrongfully accused inmates that the justice system didn’t overlooked.
Check out a list in the gallery below.
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Photos: YouTube
Tony Yarbrough and Shariff Wilson
After more than 20 years behind bars, Tony Yarbrough and Shariff Wilson were released from a New York prison this past February. Yabrough was 18, and Wilson was 15, when they were convicted for a 1992 triple murder in Brooklyn. There was no physical evidence linking them to the crime. The victims were Tony mother, Anne Yarbrough, his 12-year-old sister and her friend, also 12.
Wilson was coerced into a false confessions out of by police, under the promise that his 27-year sentence would be cut down to nine years. Tony recanted the confession in 2005 and passed lie detector tests to help prove his allegations against police.
The big break didn’t come until came in 2013. The city’s chief medical examiner matched DNA linking Anne’s killer to another woman, who was murdered in 1999. Tony and Wilson were both in prison at the time of the victim’s slaying.
The killer was never found.
Stanley Wrice
Stanley Wrice did 30 years in an Illinois Prison before his release last December. Sentenced to 100 years, Wrice was accused in a 1982 rape that he falsely confessed to after police tortured and beat him for hours.
His allegations against the Chicago police department added to more than 20 other inmates who accused authorities of the same tactics. As a result, Chicago has shelled out over $80 million in torture cases over the years.
Kash Delano Register
The false testimony of a girl he went to high school with landed Kash Delano Register behind bars for 34 years. The woman testified that she saw Register shoot her neighbor, which turned out to be a fake story she cooked up with her sister.
Prosecutors and authorities were also accused of hiding and disregarding evidence that would have proven Register’s innocence years ago.
Larry Lamb
Lawyers for Larry Lamb had been fighting for his freedom for years until August 2013, when a judge overturned the first-degree murder, robbery, and felonious conspiracy charges against the North Carolina native.
Lamb was accused of murdering a man in 1993. He served 20 years of a life sentence, eight of which were spent on death row. At his sentencing he told the judge, “I will take whatever time you give me and I will go with it with pride, but to let you know you haven’t solved this case by locking me up.”
Like the others mentioned in our list, there was no physical evidence penning Lamb to the crime for which he was convicted. Lamb was found guilty based on the woman’s testimony. Her story turned out to be fake.
Daniel Taylor
Daniel Taylor wasn’t even legal when he was arrested for double murder, despite police records proving he wasn’t involved. In 1992, 17-year-old Taylor and Deon Patric were arrested over the shooting death of two people. Taylor was in jail for disorderly conduct at the time of the murder. He and Patric were arrested two weeks after the murders. Taylor falsely confessed (because of police pressure) and spent 20 years in prison.
The confessions was the only evidence used to convict the two men, even though records show that Taylor was physically unable to commit the murders. The Chicago Tribune investigated the case in 2011 and unearthed more proof of Taylor’s incense, which eventually led to the court dropping charges against him. He was released in June of last year, and Patric was freed in January 2014.
Taylor filed a wrongful conviction lawsuit last month.
LaMonte Armstrong
LaMonte Armstrong was wrongfully convicted of murdering his college professor in 1998. Armstrong was sentenced to life in prison and served 17 years. A judge overturned his conviction thanks in part to the help of Duke Law School students. The real killer was implicated by a bloody handprint left at the crime scene.
Authorities reportedly withheld evidence, and lied to keep Armstrong locked up.
