Today, October 2, is Wrongful Conviction Day. Over 2,400 people have been exonerated in the United States since 1989, but we know the problem of wrongful convictions is much bigger. It’s a human system and with millions of people incarcerated around the world, the volume is simply too high to

At about 2 p.m. on March 26, 2004, 31-year-old Carlos Sawyer was fatally shot three times on at the corner of McElderry Street and Patterson Park Avenue in Baltimore City, Maryland. At least 30 people were present at the time. Within a day, an informant told police that the gunman

When Michael Hash was just 19, he was convicted of killing an elderly neighbor and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. He was convicted solely on the testimony of three suspect witnesses – there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime. On the morning of

On August 8, 1993, 23-year-old Wayne Ballard stopped at the intersection of 2nd Street and Massachusetts Avenue N.W. Another car pulled up to the driver’s side of Ballard’s car and a gunman fired several shots into Ballard’s car. Ballard was fatally shot in the head. Almost immediately, police suspected that

Eighteen-year-old Michelle Bosko was raped and murdered in her apartment in Norfolk, Virginia, on July 7, 1997. Her husband, a sailor returning from duty at sea, found her body the next day. The police investigation focused immediately on 25-year-old Danial Williams, a sailor in the U.S. Navy with no criminal

On November 9, 1994, Burgess was arrested and charged with first-degree murder based on testing that showed he had gunshot residue on his hands. There was no residue on his clothing and no gun was ever found. He went on trial in Baltimore City Circuit Court in June 1995. A

Thomas Haynesworth was an 18-year-old with no criminal record when he was mistakenly identified as a man who had attacked five women in Richmond, Virginia in 1984. All five victims identified him as their attacker, and he was sentenced to 74 years in prison. When Haynesworth was in custody, rapes

Wrongful Conviction Day is a day to raise awareness of the causes and remedies of wrongful conviction and to recognize the tremendous personal, social, and emotional costs of wrongful conviction for innocent people and their families. On October 2, 2019, join us in building a global movement to help right