15th Annual Awards Luncheon—Keynote Speaker

Tyrone Jones

  Keynote Speaker 

 

In 1998, Tyrone Jones was a college student home for break when he was wrongfully arrested and subsequently convicted of conspiring to commit murder. The State’s case hinged entirely on fabricated eyewitness testimony and scientifically invalid gunshot residue testing. Tyrone was sentenced to life in prison and spent more than ten years behind bars for a crime he did not commit. Over the years, Tyrone and his attorney, Michele Nethercott, then-director of the Maryland Innocence Project, discovered major flaws in the State’s case, including the use of misleading forensic evidence and a police report in which the key eyewitness said he had not seen the perpetrator. After a lengthy appeals process, Tyrone was finally exonerated in 2010.

Today, Tyrone lives with his wife and two children and works as a chef in Baltimore. Thanks to Brown, Goldstein & Levy LLP and the passage of HB 1086 this year, he hopes that he soon will be compensated for the 11 years he unjustly spent in prison.