First federal unit set up to correct wrongful convictions

By Carey Reed | SEPTEMBER 14 2014

In July, Kevin Martin, 50, who was convicted of the 1982 killing of a woman in Washington D.C. was exonerated based on DNA evidence. The U.S. Attorney’s Office challenged original forensic evidence of hair that linked Martin to the crime, according to the Washington Post.

The first of the exonerations from the U.S. Attorney’s reevaluation and new DNA evidence came in 2009 for Donald Gates. Gates was convicted of the 1981 rape and murder of a Georgetown University student based in part on hair evidence.

The results of the U.S. Attorney’s Office review are being shared with the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project, a nonprofit dedicated to correcting and preventing wrongful convictions in D.C., Maryland and Virginia. The organization is located at George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C.

Read more at PBS.org