2015 had a Record Number of Exonerations, Report Says

There was a record number of exonerations in the United States last year, a report by the National Registry of Exonerations revealed Wednesday.

According to the report, since 2011, the overall number of exonerations has been increasing. The registry's editor, Samuel Gross, noted that now, there are about three exonerations on average per week.

"What's driving it? Continuing increased interest and sensitivity and concern about the problem but also a focus on increasing activity by conviction integrity units," Gross said reported by Philly.com.
Integrity units work to examine cases that might have involved false convictions.

Overall, a total of number of 149 people was exonerated in 2015. Nearly 40 percent of these exonerations involved homicide cases with 58 defendants getting freed. Five of these people had death sentences and 19 had life sentences. Roughly three-quarters of the cases involved official misconduct.

"The thing that is most troubling to me about these cases is it's clear that for every innocent defendant who is convicted and later exonerated, there are several others who are convicted who are not exonerated because almost all the exonerations depend on a great extent on good fortune, on Lady Luck," Gross said reported by CBS News.

47 exonerations involved people who were convicted on drug charges. Many of these defendants had falsely confessed in order to avoid trials that could have led to a longer prison sentence.

Exonerations occurred in 25 states. Texas had the highest number of exonerations with 54. The state that came in second with 17 was New York and Illinois was third with 13.

"For the integrity of the system, it is the right thing to do," Inger Chandler, head of the Harris County District Attorney's Conviction Review Section, said about the exonerations, reported by Reuters.

Harris County had 42 exonerations.

The number of exonerations in 2015 was not the only record to be set. The number of cases that involved false confessions, official misconduct and convictions based on guilty pleas were also a record high.

The registry is a part of a project headed at the University of Michigan Law School. The project has documented 1,733 exonerations since 1989.

To access the report, click here.