Guilty For 21 Years Before Being Proven Innocent

Today, after Alan Newton was declared innocent, after serving 21 years for a Bronx rape he did not commit. The Innocence Project, which works on cases "where postconviction DNA testing of evidence can yield conclusive proof of innocence" at Cardozo Law School, helped find police evidence that the police had claimed was lost years ago. The NY Times' story headlines it as "New York Fail at Finding Evidence to Help the Wrongfully Convicted" and writes:

With more people and more crime than any other American city, New York also stores more evidence — over 1 million pieces in a central warehouse in Queens, and more in satellite facilities in each borough — and until recently, its inventory system consisted of handwritten ledgers and index cards. Besides storerooms run by the Police Department, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner also keeps some biological evidence.

One man who, with a co-defendant, has unsuccessfully chased evidence through the criminal justice system, said he appreciated that vast amounts of material must be stored but said even tiny fractions of it could have the power to right lives.

"I understand there's megatons of evidence all over the place," said the man, Reginald Connor, 38, who was paroled two years ago. "But these are people's lives that are being turned upside down because of stuff like this. Where is the stuff that can overturn our case and show we are innocent?"

In fact, Newton had asked for DNA evidence in 1994, 1997 and 1998, but evidence wasn't available and a police sergeant wrote that it must have been destroyed. But 2005, after the Innocence Project reached out to the Bronx DA's office, the evidence was found, and tests showed Newton did not commit the crime. A source "close to Newton" tells the Daily News, "...he wants to visit his mother's grave in Jersey. She died not long after he went to prison, and relatives said she died of a broken heart because she couldn't believe her son was guilty."

You can read the Innocence Project's profile of Newton's case.