INNOCENCE

NETWORK
EXONERATIONS

2013

CONTENTS
I.	 LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT...................................................................3

BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Erika Applebaum
Innocence Project of Minnesota

II.	THE CASES .. .............................................................................................4
1. BENNIE STARKS................................................................................................... 4
2. KRISTINE BUNCH................................................................................................ 4
3. GEORGE ALLEN................................................................................................. 5

Shawn Armbrust
Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project

4. RONALD ROSS .................................................................................................. 6

Justin Brooks
California Innocence Project

6. JOHNNY WILLIAMS............................................................................................ 7

Tucker Carrington
Mississippi Innocence Project

5. GARRY DIAMOND............................................................................................. 6
7. RANDY ARLEDGE.............................................................................................. 7
8. JERAMIE DAVIS . ............................................................................................... 8

Maddy deLone
Innocence Project

9. JOSEPH FREY...................................................................................................... 9

Marissa Bluestine
Pennsylvania Innocence Project

11. URIAH COURTENEY........................................................................................10

Keith Findley
Wisconsin Innocence Project
Mark Godsey
Ohio Innocence Project
Lisa Kavanagh
Committee for Public Counsel Services Innocence Program
David Love
Witness to Innocence

10. NICOLE HARRIS................................................................................................ 9
12. ROBERT NELSON............................................................................................10
13. DANIEL TAYLOR.............................................................................................11
14. PAUL STATLER.................................................................................................11
15. TYLER GASSMAN...........................................................................................11
16. ROBERT LARSON............................................................................................11
17.ANDREW JOHNSON.......................................................................................12
18. DEVON AYERS...............................................................................................12
19. CARLOS PEREZ...............................................................................................12

Jackie McMurtrie
Innocence Project Northwest Clinic

20. MICHAEL COSME..........................................................................................12

Nick Vilbas
Innocence Project of Texas

22. JERRY JENKINS...............................................................................................13

Seth Miller
Innocence Project of Florida
Katie Monroe
Innocence Project
Theresa Newman
Duke Center for Criminal Justice and
Professional Responsibility
Barry Scheck
Innocence Project
Robert Schehr
Arizona Innocence Project
Linda Starr
Northern California Innocence Project
Rob Warden
Center on Wrongful Convictions
Lynne Weathered
Griffith University Innocence Project

21. DAVID BOYCE...............................................................................................13
23. DEBRA BROWN..............................................................................................14
24. JOHN GREGA................................................................................................ 14
25. LARRY LAMB..................................................................................................15
26. DERRICK DEACON........................................................................................15
27. NOZAI THOMAS............................................................................................. 16
28. ANDY MELAAN.............................................................................................. 16
29. CHEYDRICK BRITT.......................................................................................... 16
30. GERARD RICHARDSON................................................................................ 17
31. JONATHAN MONTGOMERY......................................................................... 18

III. NETWORK MEMBERS.........................................................................19
COVER: ROCKY MOUNTAIN INNOCENCE CENTER CLIENT DEBRA BROWN. READ MORE ABOUT
HER CASE ON PAGE 14.

A RECORD NUMBER OF EXONERATIONS

	 			 IN 2013
As the Innocence Network reflects upon its
achievements during the past twelve months, it
would be safe to say that 2013 was an extraordinary
year for justice. The Network celebrated the largest
number of exonerations in the five years that it has
been reporting on its exonerations: 31 people were
freed from prison and declared innocent of crimes
that they did not commit. Cumulatively, they served
451 years in prison. This report features a snapshot
from each of these complex and inspiring cases.
The stories featured in this report offer telling
accounts of how a perilously flawed criminal
justice system, sometimes compounded by acts
of misconduct, can upend lives. Take the case of
George Allen, Jr. of St. Louis, Missouri, who served
more than 30 years in prison for a 1982 murder
he did not commit. Shortly after arresting Allen,
police realized they had arrested the wrong person
yet decided to interrogate him anyway. Allen,
who is a diagnosed schizophrenic, made a false
confession that showed little relationship to the
actual crime and that an interrogating officer has
since conceded they questioned. Despite a strong
alibi and serological and fingerprint evidence
excluding Allen as the perpetrator (but that was
never disclosed to his attorneys), law enforcement
built a case that nearly landed Allen on death row.
After a 30-year struggle, the Missouri courts finally
exonerated Allen, reuniting him with his 81-yearold mother.
Fortunately, the stories in this report also serve
as symbols of a system that is progressively
addressing its failures by passing new legislature
and reforming policies that are aimed at bringing
about true justice. For example, in July, Andrew
Johnson, 63, was the first person in Wyoming to be
exonerated based on post-conviction DNA testing
that was possible because of a new law that the state
passed in 2008.

LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

In 2013, there were 17 non-DNA exonerations.
It’s noteworthy that Debra Brown of Utah was
the first person to be exonerated through a 2008
law passed by the Utah Legislature that allows
for non-DNA innocence claims. She was cleared
of a 1993 murder. (Brown was just one of three
cases in which women were exonerated this year
— another record for the Innocence Network in
2013.) Nozai Thoma and Andy Meelan, clients of
the Knoops Innocence Project in the Netherlands,
were exonerated of murder when a digital
forensics expert produced evidence that provided
Thomas and Melaan with credible alibis, pointing
to an exciting new tool for clearing people who are
wrongly convicted.
But with DNA evidence contributing to nearly
half of the exonerations (14), it is clear that DNA
evidence will continue to play an important role
in helping to free innocent people for many
years to come. Misidentification was the leading
contributor to the DNA exonerations, but faulty
forensics, false confessions and incentivized
informant testimony also contributed to these
wrongful convictions.
The Innocence Network is tremendously proud
of each person exonerated in 2013, and it
commends all the exonerees for the tenacity they
demonstrated in their struggles for freedom. And
as they regain their lives and face the victories
and challenges that lie on the other side of their
wrongful convictions, we will remember their
stories and look forward to 2014 — a new year in
the pursuit of truth and justice.

— KEITH FINDLEY

WISCONSIN INNOCENCE PROJECT CO-DIRECTOR,
CLINICAL PROFESSOR UNIVERSITY
OF WISCONSIN LAW SCHOOL,
INNOCENCE NETWORK BOARD PRESIDENT

3

THE CASES

1

Bennie Starks
Innocence Project

excluded Starks and implicated another male.
Also, Starks requested a new trial, but he was
denied.

	
Bennie Starks was fully exonerated
and cleared of all charges on January 7, 2013
after a 25-year battle to clear his name of a
rape and battery he didn’t commit. Starks,
who was convicted based in part on eyewitness
misidentification and erroneous bite mark
analysis, spent 20 years in prison.
In January 1986, a 69-year-old woman was out
for a walk when she was beaten, bitten and
raped in a ravine. Investigators discovered a
black coat, watch, scarf and gloves at the crime
scene. Starks became a suspect because his
name was on a dry cleaning slip that was found
inside the recovered coat.
Starks did not match the description of the
assailant that the victim had given the police.
Furthermore, he had an alibi; he had visited two
bars that evening, which witnesses confirmed.
Also, Starks said he had been mugged on the
way home at around 11 p.m. and that his coat,
watch, and gloves were stolen.
At the trial, two forensic experts testified. A
forensic odontologist said that the bite marks
found on the victim belonged to Starks. A
serologist testified that Starks could not be
excluded as the source of semen found on the
evidence. A jury found Starks guilty. He was
sentenced to 100 years in prison.
Starks contacted the Innocence Project in 1996.
The Innocence Project discovered that the
serologist’s testimony at trial had been false;
Starks should have been excluded based on
his blood type alone. The Innocence Project
also requested DNA testing, which, in 2000,

4

In 2004, the Innocence Project secured
additional DNA testing that excluded Starks
and matched to the same person previously
implicated. In 2006, the Illinois Appellate Court
for the Second District overturned Stark’s
conviction, and he was released on bond. In
May 2012, the rape charges were dropped, and
in January 2013, the remaining battery charge
was dropped.
Schiff Harden LLP and Lake County attorneys
Lauren Kaeseberg, John Curnyn and Jed Stone
provided critical legal assistance.

2

Kristine Bunch	
Northwestern University Center on Wrongful
Convictions

In September 2012, Kristine Bunch walked out
of an Indiana state prison after she served more
than 17 years for murdering her son, a crime
which evidence would later reveal she did not
commit.
Bunch was arrested and charged in 1995 with
arson and felony murder after a fire swept her
Indiana home and claimed the life of her threeyear-old son, Anthony, on June 30 of that year.
Shortly after the fire, a state arson investigator
concluded that the fire had been started in two
places by a liquid accelerant. Days later, based
almost entirely on the investigator’s conclusion,
Bunch was charged with arson and felony
murder.
At trial, the arson investigator’s testimony
was corroborated by a forensic analyst, who

INNOCENCE NETWORK EXONERATIONS 2013

also testified that he had identified a “heavy
petroleum distillate” in the floor samples
recovered from Bunch’s home. In March of
1996, the jury found Bunch guilty of murder
and arson. She was sentenced to two concurrent
prison terms of 60 and 50 years.
In 1998, the Indiana Supreme Court affirmed
the murder conviction but vacated the arson
conviction. In 2006, Bunch’s case was taken
up by the Center on Wrongful Convictions
(CWC) at Northwestern University. The CWC
subpoenaed files from the original investigation,
which revealed that contrary to the analyst’s
testimony at trial, no heavy petroleum distillate
had been found anywhere in the home. There
was only kerosene present in the living room,
where Bunch used a kerosene heater which
occasionally spilled. The sample from the room
where three-year-old Anthony died came back
completely negative.
In March 2012, the court reversed the
conviction and ruled that Bunch was entitled to
a new trial. In August of that year, the Indiana
Supreme Court declined to appeal the Court of
Appeals decision. Bunch was released less than a
month later. She spent over 17 years wrongfully
incarcerated. Eight days before Christmas 2012,
the prosecution dropped the charges.

3

George Allen
Innocenec Project

George Allen, Jr. was exonerated in
January 2013, in St. Louis, Missouri, after
serving more than 30 years in prison for
murder. Allen was convicted based in part on
a false confession, police “tunnel vision” and
blood type evidence that was said to include
Allen, but actually eliminated him as a possible
contributor.
One night in February of 1982, Mary Bell, a
young court reporter, was discovered dead in
her home by her live-in boyfriend. The autopsy
showed that the cause of death was multiple
stab and incised wounds to the victim’s back and
neck, and there was evidence consistent with

CASES

sexual assault.
Nearly a month after the murder, police
approached George Allen several blocks
from the victim’s house and — mistaking
him for another suspect — brought him in
for questioning. Detective Herbert Riley later
realized the mistake, but interrogated Allen
nevertheless. Allen, who has an extensive
history of severe mental illness, including
hospitalizations for schizophrenia, eventually
confessed to raping and murdering the victim.
Prosecutors’ primary evidence at trial was the
confession and serological semen evidence
that was later proven to be false and actually
excluded Allen as the perpetrator. Allen
presented an alibi defense and three witnesses
testified that he was snowed in at home at the
time of the murder.
Allen’s first trial was deadlocked at ten-to-two
in favor of an acquittal. At his second trial, he
was convicted on capital murder, rape, sodomy,
and first degree burglary and was sentenced
to 50 years for capital murder and 15 years
consecutively on each of the other three
charges. Allen narrowly escaped the death
penalty. A juror was relieved of duty due to a
family emergency, and as a result the sentencing
hearing could not be held and the state was
forced to waive the death penalty.
On September 27, 2011, the Innocence Project
filed a petition to overturn Allen’s conviction
based on the serological evidence excluding
Allen and other evidence that was never turned
over to Allen’s lawyers that pointed to his
innocence. That evidence included fingerprint
evidence excluding Allen, a drawing that Allen
was asked to draw of the victim’s apartment
that did not match her apartment and evidence
that a witness who was called to verify a detail
from Allen’s statement had been subjected to
a police-organized hypnosis session in order to
recall the incident.
In November 2012, a Missouri court granted
Allen’s petition and overturned Allen’s
conviction, and the Attorney General’s Office
responded by filing a meritless appeal of that

5

decision. On December 26, 2012, a Missouri
appeals court denied that appeal, clearing the
way for Allen’s exoneration.
On January 18, 2013, the St. Louis Circuit
Attorney Jennifer Joyce filed a motion
dismissing the indictment against George
Allen Jr. After a 30-year struggle to clear his
name, Allen finally became a free man. Allen
was represented by the Innocence Project and
Ameer Gado, Dan Harvath and Tim O’Connell
with Bryan Cave, LLP. Rosa Greenbaum of
Sarasota, Florida, also provided pro bono
investigation assistance.

4

Ronald Ross
Northern California Innocence Project

On November 8, 2006, Ronald Ross was
wrongfully convicted of the attempted murder
of his West Oakland, California, neighbor,
Renardo Williams.
Prior to his attempted murder, Williams had
confronted another neighbor, Nikisha Stuart,
about a fight between her son and his daughter.
Stuart told Williams she would “send her man”
to talk to him, and the next day, two men,
accompanied by Stuart’s son, shot Williams in
his home.
Ronald Ross lived in the neighborhood, but
had never met Stuart or Williams. Despite there
being no evidence implicating Ross and no
motive linking him to the crime, Oakland Police
included Ross’s photo in a lineup (he had prior
convictions for narcotics possession) “for public
relations purposes” and witnesses — including
the victim — misidentified him as the shooter.
A jury convicted him of attempted murder and
assault with a firearm, and he was sentenced to
25 years to life.
In 2008, the Northern California Innocence
Project at Santa Clara University Law School
took on Ross’s case and was later joined by
the law firm of Keker and Van Nest. In 2012, a
petition seeking to vacate Ross’s conviction was
filed.

6

The petition stated that Williams had recanted
his identification of Ross, saying that he only
identified Ross because the Oakland detective
who conducted the lineup told him to identify
Ross and because Williams “owed a favor” to the
detective. Stuart’s son recanted his identification
as well, stating that the true perpetrator was
his father. Ultimately, the actual perpetrator
acknowledged that he was at the shooting and
that Ronald Ross had no part whatsoever and he
had, in fact, never met Ross.
On February 22, 2013, the Alameda County
District Attorney’s Office dismissed all charges
and Ross was released. He was wrongfully
incarcerated for more than six years.

5

Garry Diamond
Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project

Garry Diamond was exonerated earlier
this year when his writ of actual innocence was
granted by the Virginia Supreme Court after
DNA testing excluded him as the perpetrator of a
crime that happened 27 years ago.
In 1977, Diamond was wrongfully convicted of
a July 1976 abduction of a woman and her two
children. The woman was raped and sodomized
in her car with her children present.
During the investigation, the victim’s three-yearold son identified Diamond from a book of
mug shots presented by the police. The victim,
however, said that Diamond did not fit the
description of the attacker. Diamond’s mug shot
was included in the photo array because he had
been accused of a similar attack that happened in
October 1976.
Although Diamond had an alibi, he was
convicted of two counts of abduction and one
count of abduction with intent to defile. He was
sentenced to 15 years in prison for both the July
and the October attacks. Diamond was released
from prison on parole in 1979.
In 2005, evidence from the July 1976 crime
was tested as part of an ongoing review by the
Virginia Department of Forensic Science of old
case files that contain biological evidence. The

INNOCENCE NETWORK EXONERATIONS 2013

tests excluded Diamond. A re-investigation of the
case, however, was difficult because most of the
court files had been lost or destroyed.
Diamond contacted the Mid-Atlantic Innocence
Project in 2012. Along with the Institute for
Innocence at the University of Richmond Law
School, the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project filed
a petition with the Virginia Supreme Court,
seeking a writ of actual innocence. The Attorney
General for the Commonwealth of Virginia
joined in the petition. The writ of innocence was
granted in March 2013.

6

Johnny Williams
Northern California Innocence Project

Johnny Williams was exonerated early
this year after new DNA testing secured by the
Northern California Innocence Project and the
California DNA Project proved his innocence.
Williams was convicted of raping a nine-yearold girl in 1998 in Oakland, California. The
victim said that a man forced her and one of
her friends behind a building, where he sexually
assaulted her and then ejaculated on her shirt.
The girl said that her attacker was named
Johnny. The girl’s mother concluded that the
attacker must have been Williams, whom she
knew from the neighborhood. A day later, the
girl identified Williams from a photo lineup.
Although he did not fit the earlier description
of the man she had described to the police,
she was aware by that point that her mother
believed Williams to be the attacker.
Williams was arrested on traffic violations
and taken into the police department for a
lengthy interrogation. He maintained his
innocence for nearly the entire interrogation
until investigators told him that there were
dozens of witnesses who confirmed that he was
the assailant. At that point, he said, “I guess I
did it. I guess I did it. I did everything,” but
immediately thereafter, he recanted, and again
declared his innocence. At the conclusion of the
questioning, the investigators told him that they
did not consider his statement a confession.

CASES

At the trial, however, the prosecution played the
portions of the recorded interrogation in which
Williams said he had “Did everything,” as well as
other statements he made to the police that they
argued implicated him. Although the Oakland
Police Department and the Alameda County
District Attorney’s Office submitted the victim’s
T-shirt for testing, the crime lab was unable
to find semen on the shirt. The jury found
Williams guilty. He was sentenced to 16 years in
prison.
Williams wrote a letter to the Northern
California Innocence Project seeking assistance,
which began an investigation through its sister
organization, the California DNA Project.
They re-tested the victim’s t-shirt and found
enough biological material to yield a complete
male DNA profile that conclusively excluded
Mr. Williams as the perpetrator. In light of the
new evidence, the District Attorney’s Office
conceded that Williams was actually innocent,
and once the Alameda County Superior Court
overturned the conviction, the DA moved to
dismiss charges against Williams. Williams had
been paroled in January after wrongfully serving
14 years behind bars.

7

Randy Arledge
Innocence Project

Randy Arledge was wrongfully convicted
of a Corsicana, Texas, rape and murder based
almost entirely on informant testimony.
He served 14 years in prison before he was
exonerated through DNA testing on May 3,
2013.
On August 30, 1981, 21-year-old Carolyn
Armstrong was found on a dirt road off of
Highway 22 in Navarro County, Texas. She had
been stabbed 40 times in her neck and chest.
Her abandoned car was found with the keys in
the ignition several miles away. A black hair net
and partially smoked joint were also found in
the car.
Arledge was in Corsicana visiting family at the
time of the crime but left the following day

7

for his home in Houston. There, he met up
with Bennie Lamas and Paula Lucas and went
on a road trip in a stolen van. The three were
apprehended in Tennessee in connection with
an armed robbery charge.
Pursuant to a plea deal, Lamas and Lucas
testified at Arledge’s Texas murder trial that
Arledge told them he had murdered a woman
in Corsicana. In return, Lucas received favorable
consideration at sentencing for the armed
robbery and was given probation. Despite a
lack of physical evidence connecting Arledge
to the crimes and alibi testimony from several
witnesses, he was convicted of murder and
sentenced to 99 years in prison.
In 2011, the Innocence Project secured DNA
testing of the physical evidence with the
cooperation of the Navarro County District
Attorney’s Office. The testing, conducted by
Cellmark Forensics, included hair samples from
the hairnet and washings from the victim’s
pubic hairs. Every item of evidence excluded
Arledge, and revealed a match to felon David
Sims.
On February 11, 2013, Judge James
Lagomarsino and the Navarro County District
Attorney’s Office agreed to release Arledge on
bond during the process of overturning his
conviction. Arledge was officially exonerated
of Armstrong’s murder by the Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals on May 3, 2013.

8

Jeramie Davis
Innocence Project Northwest

Jeramie Davis served nearly six years
of a 40-year sentence for a crime he did not
commit. He was found guilty by a jury in 2008
for murdering the owner of an adult book store
in 2007. Although Davis admitted to robbing the
store, he did not kill the owner.
Early in the morning of June 18th, 2007, police
received a call from Jeramie Davis reporting
that John Allen, the 74-year-old owner of an
adult bookstore, was unconscious. Davis had
entered the store at around 10 p.m. on June

8

17, and saw the victim lying on the floor, but
thought that he had heard him snoring and
assumed he had passed out drunk. Davis left
the store and then returned with a friend and
stole checks and pornographic materials before
going to his sister’s house. After talking with
his sister, who had some medical training, they
became concerned that the owner may have had
a seizure. Davis returned to the store with his
sister at 2 a.m., at which point they realized he
was bleeding and called 911.
Police responded and found Allen bleeding
from the back of the head, with a baseball bat
under his knees. He died the next day of blunt
force head trauma. The cash register from the
store and the victim’s truck were missing. The
truck was later found nearby with the empty
register inside.
At trial, prosecutors claimed that Davis
remained at the store from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.
before calling 911, which would have given him
ample time to stage the crime scene and alter
the evidence. Davis’ sister and several friends
testified that they had been with Davis during
those four hours, providing his alibi defense.
No fingerprints or DNA from Davis were found
at the crime scene or in the victim’s truck. DNA
testing on the bat showed the victim’s DNA on
the top portion and DNA from an unknown
male on the remainder. A matching partial
profile was also found on material from Allen’s
stolen truck.
Despite the lack of direct evidence linking Davis
to the murder, a jury found Davis guilty and
was sentenced to 40 years in prison and almost
$3,000 restitution.
In 2011, Spokane police requested that the
unidentified DNA profile found on the bat and
in the victim’s stolen vehicle be uploaded to the
federal DNA database. A match was found to
Julio Davila, who was arrested for the crime in
July 2011 and was convicted of the murder in
2012. Meanwhile, Davis remained in prison.
The Innocence Project Northwest began
reviewing Davis’ case, and over the objections
of the prosecution, secured a new trial for him.

INNOCENCE NETWORK EXONERATIONS 2013

Prosecutors argued that he and Davila must
have committed the crime together despite the
fact that both Davila and Davis denied knowing
each other. Finally, a lengthy police investigation
revealed no connection between the two. In
April 2013, the parties reached a settlement
that resulted in dismissal of the murder charge.
Davis entered a plea to the robbery charge and
was released.

9

Joseph Frey
Wisconsin Innocence Project

After serving eight years of a 102-year sentence
for a 1991 rape, DNA evidence exonerated
Joseph Frey on July 12, 2013.
In 1994, Joseph Frey was convicted for the
1991 rape of a University of Wisconsin-Oshkosk
college student. The young woman was sleeping
in her apartment when she awoke to find a
stranger standing over her bed. Initially, when
the woman called the police after her attack,
she said that she thought her landlord was the
perpetrator.
Over several months during the investigation,
the victim was asked to identify her assailant
from several photo arrays. During each line-up,
she refused to make a positive identification but
did find that there were similarities between
Frey and the assailant. Eventually, in a fourth
line-up, she did identify Frey but said that she
was unsure whether he was actually the man
who attacked her.
Frey had become a suspect because he was
implicated in two similar crimes in Green Bay.
He was convicted of these crimes, but said he
was not involved in the rape of the college
student. The case went to trial in 1993. The state
presented testimony of a jailhouse informant
who said that Frey had admitted to raping
the Oshkosh woman. Despite the fact that the
police had destroyed nearly all of the physical
evidence, the defense was able to introduce

CASES

results from DNA tests that excluded Frey as the
source of stains found on the bed sheets. Frey
was found guilty and sentenced to 102 years in
prison.
With help from the Wisconsin Innocence
Project, evidence was recovered and submitted
for DNA testing. Results from the DNA tests
implicated a deceased man who had been
sentenced to 30 years in prison for sexually
assaulting two sisters.
Life has presented Frey with challenges since
his exoneration. He has been confronted with
homelessness and has serious health problems.
But, Frey says he is determined to bring
awareness to the pitfalls in the justice system.

10

Nicole Harris
Northwestern University Center on
Wrongful Convictions

In February 2013, Nicole Harris was released
from prison after her conviction for murder
was overturned by a federal appeals court. She
had served more than eight years in prison after
being wrongfully convicted of murdering her
young son.
On May 14, 2005, Nicole Harris’s four-yearold son Jaquari Dancy was found dead in his
Illinois bedroom, choked by an elastic band that
had come loose from a fitted bed sheet. In an
autopsy completed the next day, the medical
examiner ruled Jaquari’s death an accident.
Despite the autopsy results, police interrogated
Harris for over 27 hours, eventually eliciting
a false confession through physical and
psychological abuse. Although police had the
equipment to record the entire interrogation,
the only part that was videotaped was Harris
stating that she had strangled Jaquari with the
elastic piece.
At trial, her attorney attempted to introduce the

9

testimony of Harris’ other son Diante, then 6,
who said that Jaquari liked to wrap the elastic
band around his neck and wear the sheet as a
cape, pretending to be Superman. Diante was
barred as a witness, and Harris was convicted
and sentenced to 30 years.
Harris sought the help of Northwestern
University’s Center on Wrongful Convictions.
After multiple denials of motions for a new
trial, in 2012 the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals
reversed Harris’s conviction and ordered a new
trial. On February 25, 2013, Harris was released
on bond. The prosecution appealed to the
U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear
the appeal. On June 17, 2013, the prosecution
dismissed the case.

11

Uriah Courtney
California Innocence Project

After serving more than eight
years for a wrongful conviction, Uriah Courtney
was exonerated on June 23. Courtney told ABC10 News in San Diego: “When I got out, I felt I
could fly.”
In 2005, Courtney was arrested for the
kidnapping, sexual assault and false
imprisonment of a teenage girl. She was
walking to see a friend when a man attacked and
assaulted her on the side of an expressway in
Lemon Grove, California.
Courtney became the prime suspect when
the victim told investigators that immediately
before she was attacked, she’d seen a truck and
that a man was staring at her from the window.
Initially, the victim did not identify the man
in the truck as her attacker, but later decided
that the man in the truck and the attacker were
perhaps one in the same.
Ultimately, the victim told police she was more
confident in her ability to identify the truck than
the perpetrator, so the cops started looking for a
truck that matched her description.
Based on the description of the truck,
investigators were led to Courtney’s step-father,

10

who owned a truck similar to that seen by the
victim and the witnesses. The victim, when
showed a picture of the truck belonging to
Courtney’s family, said that she was about 80
percent sure that it was the same truck she’d
seen on the day she was attacked.
In a photo line-up, the victim was unable
to make a positive identification. She had
a challenging time deciding between three
people in the photo array, eventually choosing
Courtney, but not without hesitation. One
of the witnesses, who had also helped police
to create a composite sketch, also identified
Courtney as the perpetrator.
At the trial, Courtney maintained his innocence.
His boss testified that Courtney was at work at a
construction site during the time of the attack.
Regardless of his alibi, the jury found Courtney
guilty. He was sentenced to life in prison.
In 2010, Courtney began to work with the
California Innocence Project. The organization
worked with the San Diego County District
Attorney’s Office to get evidence submitted
for new DNA testing. The results pointed to
another man, who actually lived only three miles
from the crime scene and resembled Courtney.

12

Robert Nelson
Midwest Innocnece Project

On June 12, 2013, Robert Nelson
was exonerated after spending 30 years of his
life in prison after he was wrongfully convicted
based on misidentification by investigators and
the victim.
In 1983, a 25-year-old woman was raped and
robbed in her Kansas City, Missouri, home by
two men. As part of the investigation, the victim
was shown a photo array of potential suspects,
but she did not identify her attackers. The
following month, investigators received an
anonymous call informing them that the rapists
were two brothers with the last name of Ramsey.
They were allegedly in jail for robbery. Though
Nelson and his brother had different last
names from that reported on the phone call,
they became suspects of the rape and robbery

INNOCENCE NETWORK EXONERATIONS 2013

because they were in jail at the time for robbery.
The victim later identified Nelson as one of
her attackers based on a voice identification.
While she did not identify Nelson’s brother,
both men were charged with the rape and
robbery. Charges against Nelson’s brother were
eventually dropped.

Taylor, which was time-stamped at 10 p.m. —
more than an hour after the murders occurred.
The officers testified that Taylor had signed the
bond slip and was released prior to the shooting,
and that the time stamp must have been put
on after his release. He was sentenced to life in
prison.

At the trial, the victim again identified Nelson as
one of her attackers. Nelson had an alibi; he was
with his family during the time of the crime, but
the alibi was not presented at the trial. Nelson
was convicted and was sentenced to 98 years.

In February, Taylor’s attorneys from the Center
on Wrongful Conviction at Northwestern
University School of Law filed a petition with
the Cook County Circuit Court that confirmed
there were five police employees who have
sworn the records accurately indicate that Taylor
was behind bars at the time of the murders.
The petition also claimed that a prosecutor’s
notes and other documents supporting Taylor’s
innocence were withheld pre-trial.

Midwest Innocence Project was contacted by the
court to take the case after Nelson filed his third
pro se motion for DNA testing. His first two
motions had been denied.
In 2012, DNA results were matched to two
convicted felons and excluded Nelson. In
2013, both the Midwest Innocence Project and
the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office filed
a motion to vacate Nelson’s conviction and
dismiss the charges. The judge granted that
motion and Nelson was released that same day.

13

Daniel Taylor
Northwestern University Center on
Wrongful Convictions

In June 2013, Daniel Taylor was released from
prison after 20 years of wrongful incarceration.
Taylor had been convicted of a 1992 double
murder despite records showing he was in police
custody at the time the murders took place.
In November 1992, a drug dealer and a prostitute
were murdered on Chicago’s South Side. Police
eventually arrested eight juveniles for the
crimes. After lengthy interrogations all the teens
confessed and implicated each other for the
murders.
Of the eight youth, two had their charges
dismissed before trial. Another was acquitted,
and five — including Taylor — were convicted.
At Taylor’s trial, the prosecution presented
testimony from police officers who were at the
station where Taylor was held on the night of
the murders, as well as the bond slip, signed by

CASES

On June 28th, 2013, prosecutors for Chicago’s
Cook County dropped murder charges against
Taylor.

14
15
16

Paul Statler
Innocence Project Northwest

Tyler Gassman
Innocence Project Northwest
Robert Larson
Innocence Project Northwest

In December 2012, a Superior
Court Judge in Washington vacated the
convictions of Paul Statler, Tyler Gassman and
Robert Larson — all wrongfully incarcerated
for robbery based off of the testimony of a codefendant who received a deal for implicating
the three young men. All three spent nearly five
years in prison.
The then-17-year-old informant, Matthew
Dunham, implicated Statler, Gassman,
and Larson in a spree of robberies he had
committed with Anthony Kongjunchi. Pre-trial,
Kongjunchi told defense lawyers that Statler,
Gassman, and Larson had nothing to do with

11

the crimes. However, Kongjunchi also said that
if called as a witness, he would invoke his right
against self-incrimination and refuse to testify.
On the first day of the trial, the prosecution
amended the charges and said that the crime
occurred on April 17, 2008, not April 15, as
they had initially said, since Larson’s attorney
had found records showing that Larson was
at work when the crime had been committed
on the 15th. Dunham’s testimony was the only
evidence against the three. Witnesses identified
Dunham and Kongjunchi, but none identified
Statler, Gassman, or Larson. Regardless, a jury
convicted the three in 2009.
The Innocence Project Northwest at the
University of Washington began investigating
the case after all three convictions were upheld
on appeal. A trial court vacated the men’s
convictions in June and ordered a new trial. The
prosecutor dropped against Larson on June 3,
2013 and Stalter and Glassman on July 24.

17

Andrew Johnson
Rocky Mountain Innocence Center

Andrew Johnson was the first
person in Wyoming to be exonerated of a crime
based on post-conviction DNA testing. In July, a
Wyoming district court judge declared Johnson
innocent of a 1989 rape. Andrew Johnson, 63,
maintained his innocence from the start and
served 23 years behind bars.
In 1989, Johnson was working as a construction
worker in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and was
engaged to be married when he was accused
and later convicted of raping an acquaintance.
A woman said that Johnson attacked her at
her house after the two of them had spent the
evening together, bar-hopping. While Johnson’s
eyeglasses and identification were found at the
victim’s apartment, Johnson insisted that they
were left when he had visited earlier that day.
Johnson was convicted of sexual assault and
aggravated burglary based largely on the victim’s
testimony at trial.

12

Johnson’s attorneys at the Rocky Mountain
Innocence Center fought for his freedom for
more than a decade and played a major role
in changing the state’s law in 2008 to allow for
post-conviction DNA testing, knowing it could
help win Johnson’s release. As a cooperating
attorney with the Rocky Mountain Innocence
Center, Aaron Lyttle also played an important
role in Johnson’s exoneration.
In April 2013, Johnson was released on bond
after new DNA testing excluded him as the
source of the semen found in the victim’s
rape kit. In July 2013, Laramie County District
Attorney Scott Homar announced that all
charges against Johnson were being dismissed.

18
19
20

Devon Ayers
The Exoneration Initiative

Carlos Perez
The Exoneration Initiative

Michael Cosme
The Exoneration Initiative

		
In 1995, Denise Raymond was
found murdered in her Bronx apartment. Less
than a day after her body was found, Baithe
Diop, a taxi driver, was killed a block away from
Raymond’s home. Two neighborhood women
told police that they had heard a group of
young men discussing the murder in a local
park. Based off of these two women’s statements,
police arrested six people: Carlos Perez, Devon
Ayers, Michael Cosme, Israel Vasquez, Eric
Glisson, and Cathy Watkins.
Ayers, Cosme, Perez, and Vasquez were charged
with murdering Raymond at the behest of her
former boyfriend, Charles McKinnon, and then
going on to murder Diop in collaboration with
Glisson and Watkins.
One of the witnesses told police that they heard
Diop being shot and saw a number of people

INNOCENCE NETWORK EXONERATIONS 2013

flee from his car after the shots were fired. She
later identified them as Ayers, Cosme, Perez,
Vasquez, Glisson, and Watkins.
Ayers, Cosme and Perez were convicted of the
murders of both Diop and Raymond in 1997
and each was sentenced to 50 years to life for
both murders. In 2003, federal authorities were
investigating a Bronx gang, and two members
independently confessed to the murder of
a livery car driver in 1995. Based off of their
confessions, in December of 2012 Ayers, Cosme,
and Perez were exonerated of Diop’s murder.
Newly discovered evidence also pointed to their
innocence in the murder of Raymond. Security
footage from a camera in Raymond’s apartment
building contradicted the statement of one of
Raymond’s friends, who testified at the original
trial that Raymond left her work with McKinnon
the night before the murder.
On September 20th, 2013, the prosecution
ultimately consented to dismiss charges against
Ayers, Cosme, and Perez, who were represented
by the Exoneration Initiative, along with
the Legal Aid Society, Center for Appellate
Litigation, Roman and Kuan, Emory Celli
Brinckerhoff and Abady.

21

David Boyce
Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project

		
David Boyce was wrongfully
convicted of the murder of a housekeeper at a
Virginia Beach motel in 1991. He spent 23 years
in prison before he was exonerated.
Boyce, then 19, was sharing a room with the
35-year-old victim, Timothy Askew, at the motel
where the two both worked. Boyce repeatedly
told police that Askew had gone out partying
the night of his death, and that Boyce had not
seen him past 2 a.m.. Despite his account of the
night remaining consistent, on the 3rd interview
with police, Boyce was arrested.
His conviction rested on a litany of bad
evidence, including the account of another

CASES

employee of the hotel who testified that he saw
Boyce furtively ducking out of the room where
Askew was killed (not the room he shared with
Boyce) around 3 a.m., a jailhouse informant
who claimed Boyce confessed, and testimony
from a police officer who claimed that his scenttracing dog had tracked the bloody towels found
at the scene of the murder back to the room
that Boyce and Askew had been sharing. Boyce
was given two life sentences.
Post-conviction DNA testing of the many crime
scene items revealed the DNA of an unknown
person and no trace of Boyce. Additionally, the
informant recanted his claims that Boyce had
confessed. Boyce filed a petition for a writ of
actual innocence, which was denied, soon after
the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project took on
his case. State and federal petitions for writs of
habeas corpus were filed, and in March of 2013,
a federal judge vacated his convictions and
ordered a new trial. On September 18, 2013, the
prosecution dismissed the charges, and Boyce
was exonerated.

22

Jerry Jenkins
Innocence Project Northwest

In June 2013, Jerry Jenkins
was exonerated of sexual assault after being
wrongfully convicted in 1987. He spent more
than 26 years in prison for a crime that he did
not commit.
In February 1986, a woman was sexually
assaulted in a model home in Waldorf,
Maryland. Immediately following the attack,
the victim called police and gave a partial
description of her attacker. Investigators first
theorized that the attack was the work of a serial
rapist; multiple attacks with similarities had
been committed in the area over a number of
years.
The investigation had stalled when police
decided to interview Jerry Jenkins, who was
being held in jail on unrelated charges. Police
took a picture of Jenkins, but chose to use a fiveyear-old photo of him in the photo lineup for
the witness, who claimed that Jenkins “looked

13

like” her attacker, but could not positively
identify him. Police eventually realized that
Jenkins didn’t commit the earlier crimes but
charged him for the 1986 crime anyway.
A break in the case came when DNA testing
in one of the earlier assaults hit to a convicted
rapist, Norman Derr, who was already
incarcerated for a sexual assault that occurred
in 1988. In 2007, the Mid-Atlantic Innocence
Project began representing Jenkins. Thanks
to their investigation, the original rape kit was
located and tested. The results hit to Derr’s
CODIS profile, and on June 7, 2013, the case
was dismissed, and Jenkins was freed.

23

Debra Brown
Rocky Mountain Innocence Center

	
In July 2013, the Utah Supreme Court
upheld a district court ruling that found Debra
Brown “factually innocent” of murder. Debra
Brown was the first person to be exonerated
through a 2008 law passed by the Utah
Legislature that allows for non-DNA innocence
claims.
Debra Brown spent 17 years in prison for the
murder of her boss and family friend, 75-yearold Lael Brown, who she discovered dead in his
home on November 7, 1993. She had gone to
his home to check on him because he was ill.
When she entered his house, she found him
with three gunshot wounds to his head. The
weapon was missing from the crime scene, as
was Lael Brown’s wallet.
Debra Brown was not considered a suspect
until investigators discovered that she had
forged Lael Brown’s signature on $3,600 worth
of checks from his account. The prosecution
reasoned that Debra Brown killed Lael Brown
because he had discovered that she had forged
the checks.
At the trial, the prosecution said that Debra
Brown’s lack of alibi indicated that she was
guilty. According to the prosecution, the victim
was murdered in the early morning hours of
Saturday, November 6, 1993. Also, Debra Brown

14

had a key to the victim’s home, which, according
to the prosecution, explained why there were no
signs of forced entry at the crime scene. A jury
convicted Debra Brown in October 1995. She
was sentenced to life in prison.
The Rocky Mountain Innocence Center took
on the case in 2002. In 2011, Debra Brown’s
attorneys presented evidence which revealed
that Lael Brown actually died sometime between
9 p.m. Saturday, November 6 and 3 a.m. Sunday,
November 7. Also, two witnesses said that they
had seen Lael Brown alive later in the day on
Saturday, November 6, a time for which Debra
Brown had an alibi. One of the witnesses had
actually spoken to the prosecutors pre-trial, but
he was never called to testify and Debra Brown’s
attorney’s had not been made aware by the
prosecution about the witness’s statement.
On May 2, 2011, a district court judge ruled
that based on the new evidence, Debra Brown
was factually innocent of the crime and she
was freed from prison a week later.The Utah
Attorney General’s office appealed the district
court ruling, but in July 2013, the Utah Supreme
Court upheld the district court ruling, finalizing
Debra Brown’s exoneration.

24

John Grega
New England Innocence Project

Prosecutors dismissed Grega’s aggravated
murder charge on August 21, 2013, one year
after new DNA evidence proved that John Grega
was innocent of murdering his wife. Grega
wrongfully served 18 years behind bars. He is
the first person in Vermont to be released from
prison based on DNA testing.
John Grega was vacationing with his wife and
young son in West Dover, Vermont, in 1994
when his wife’s body was found strangled and
sexually assaulted. There were no witnesses to
the crime. Despite Grega having no criminal
record or history of violence, police considered
him the prime suspect.

INNOCENCE NETWORK EXONERATIONS 2013

At the trial, no witnesses or physical evidence
were introduced. Prosecutors relied on
circumstantial evidence and on Grega’s own
conflicting statements that some of his wife’s
injuries may have been caused by rough sex they
had before her death. Grega was convicted in
1995. He was the first person ever in Vermont’s
to receive a life sentence without the possibility
of parole.
Vermont law firm Goodwin Procter took on the
case as a member of the New England Innocent
Project’s pro bono network. In May 2012, new
DNA testing of evidence excluded Grega and
revealed skin cells from an unknown male.
Grega was released from prison on August 22,
2012 and was granted a new trial. One year
later, he was exonerated. Gretchen Bennett,
the Executive Director of the New England
Innocence Project, credited Grega with
contributing to his own exoneration; he worked
on his own case and with lawyers to secure new
DNA testing.

25

Larry Lamb
North Carolina Center on Actual
Innocence

Larry Lamb spent 20 years in prison for a
murder he did not commit before being
exonerated in August 2013.
In 1987, Leamon Grady was found murdered in
his North Carolina home. The case was cold for
three years until police issued a reward for any
information about the case. A woman named
Lovely Lorden told police that her former
boyfriend, Levon Jones, was the perpetrator. She
gave multiple conflicting stories about what had
happened the night of the crime, but ultimately
testified that she, along with Jones, Larry Lamb
and another man, went to Grady’s home to rob
him. Lorden testified that she stayed in the car
while the three men went in.

murder, despite there being no witnesses —
other than Lorden — and no physical evidence.
All three claimed to be innocent.
The North Carolina Center on Actual
Innocence began investigating Lamb’s case in
2007. In 2008, Lorden recanted her testimony
and Jones’ charges were dismissed. Soon after,
the Center on Actual Innocence discovered
sworn statements from two other men, one of
whom claimed responsibility for the murder.
Based on this new evidence, along with Lorden’s
recantation, they filed a petition for a new
trial. A judge dismissed Lamb’s convictions on
August 8, 2013, and the prosecution dropped all
charges on August 13.

26

Derrick Deacon
The Exoneration Initiative
In November 2013, Derrick
Deacon became a free man when a Brooklyn
jury acquitted him of a robbery and murder for
which he wrongly spent 24 years in prison.
In 1989, a 16-year-old, Anthony Wynn, was
shot to death in the hallway of his apartment
building in the Flatbush neighborhood of
Brooklyn, New York. An eyewitness described
the gunman as 19 years old and approximately
five foot, seven inches tall. Despite being 34
years old and six feet tall, Deacon was arrested
when a resident of the building called the police
and reported that he had seen Deacon yank a
necklace off of Wynn’s neck and then heard
gun shots. Residents were familiar with Deacon
because he regularly did odd jobs around the
building.
At the trial, the eyewitness was expected to
testify on behalf of Deacon’s innocence, but
instead, said that she was unsure as to whether
Deacon was the shooter. Deacon maintained his
innocence throughout the trial and provided an
alibi, but he was convicted and sentenced to 25
years to life.

All three men were convicted of first degree

15

In 2001, Trevor Brown, a federal cooperating
witness, told prosecutors that Wynn was not the
shooter; the actual perpetrator was a local gang
member who confessed to Brown. It was not
until three years later that the information was
finally passed on to Deacon, through another
gang member.
Glenn Garber and Rebecca Freedman of the
Exoneration Initiative took on Deacon’s case
in 2007. In 2009, lawyers from Paul Weiss
Rifkind Wharton and Garrison assisted with
the litigation of a motion for a new trial. The
motion was denied, but in 2012, Deacon’s
conviction was vacated on appeal. In 2013,
Deacon was given a new trial. The Exoneration
Initiative acted as trial counsel. Brown testified,
reiterating that it was a gang member who
had killed Wynn. The eyewitness from the first
trial also testified. She told the jury that she
was pressured by the Kings County District
Attorney’s Office to lie at the first trial, and this
time admitted that Deacon was not the shooter.
On November 18, 2013, the jury acquitted
Deacon after only nine minutes.

27

Cheydrick Britt
Innocence Project of Florida

Cheydrick Britt was wrongfully
convicted of rape after his girlfriend’s 15-yearold daughter claimed that he had assaulted her
in their Tampa, Florida, home. He served more
than nine years in prison.
While the girl’s account of events changed
several times, she eventually testified that while
she was raped, she was unsure whether or not
Britt had ejaculated inside her. She had a rape
kit done the day of the purported attack, but
there was no evidence of semen on the vaginal
or oral swabs, or on the victim’s underwear
that she put on after the alleged incident. The
sheets tested positive for semen, but they were
taken from the bed that Britt shared with the
girls’ mother, his girlfriend, so the results were
not surprising. Most importantly, the victim
stated that she had only had sex once before, a
year prior to the alleged incident and that there

16

was no ejaculation during that previous sexual
experience.
Britt was convicted of sexual battery and
sentenced to 30 years. The Innocence Project
of Florida secured post-conviction DNA testing
of the evidence in 2010, and in 2013, DNA tests
of the victim’s underwear identified semen and
a male DNA profile that excluded Britt. Based
on these results, the circuit court vacated Britt’s
conviction on September 24, 2013 and he was
released from custody. On November 20, 2013,
because the victim maintained that her trial
testimony regarding her previous sexual history
was accurate and the prosecution, therefore,
could not provide an explanation for the
unknown semen on the victim’s underwear, the
prosecution dismissed all charges against him.
Cheydrick Britt currently resides in Tampa,
Florida.

28
29

Andy Melaan
Knoops’ Innocence Project

Nozai Thomas
Knoops’ Innocence Project

On November 20, 2013, Andy
Melaan and Nozai Thomas were acquitted
of murder by the High Court of Justice for
the Dutch Antilles. Melaan served eight years
of a 24-year sentence after being wrongfully
convicted based on a false confession made by
Thomas, which implicated them both in the
murder of two brothers. Thomas served five
years of an eight year sentence.
In 2005, a group of men allegedly lured two
brothers, Lisandro and Wendell Martis, to
a secluded spot and then killed them. The
prosecution claimed that Melaan was involved
and that Thomas served as the lookout. Both
young men were convicted based on an
incriminating statement made by one of the
other men involved in the case as well as by
Thomas’ false confession, which the defense
team would later reveal was the result of
extreme pressure by the investigators who were

INNOCENCE NETWORK EXONERATIONS 2013

involved in the case as well as by Thomas’ false
confession, which the defense team would
later reveal was the result of extreme pressure
by the investigators who were conducting the
investigation.
The Knoops Innocence Project took on the
case and was able to secure a November 2013
hearing, at which a digital forensics expert
produced evidence that Thomas was at his desk,
logged in to his computer and downloading
music at the time of the murder. Call phone
records show that Melaan was on the other
side of the island when the crime took place,
providing Melaan with an alibi. The public
prosecutor said that there was no evidence that
connected Thomas and Melaan to the crime.
Based on the new evidence, Melaan and
Thomas were exonerated of their murder
convictions. On behalf of the public
prosecution service, Attorney General S.
Lukowski offered his apologies to Melaan and
Thomas.

30

Gerard Richardson
Innocence Project

		
In December 2013, Gerard
Richardson was exonerated of murder nearly
two months after a Somerset County Superior
Court Judge overturned his conviction and
ordered his release from prison. Richardson
served more than 19 years for a wrongful
conviction.
Late one night in February 1994, Monica
Reyes, a 19-year-old from Elizabeth, New Jersey,
disappeared. Five days later, her small, 83-pound
body was found partially covered in snow in
a road-side ditch. She had been bludgeoned
and strangled. During her autopsy, the medical
examiner found a bite mark on the lower left
part of her back.
Richardson became a suspect because Reyes,
who was addicted to heroin, occasionally sold
drugs for Richardson and owed him $90. There

was no physical evidence tying Richardson to
the crime.
It was expert testimony regarding a bite mark
comparison that helped to persuade a jury to
convict Richardson of the murder at the 1995
trial. A forensic odontologist testified that the
bite mark left on the victim was indisputably
made by Richardson. In closing arguments,
the prosecutor said: “Mr. Richardson, in effect,
left a calling card. . . . It’s as if he left a note
that said, ‘I was here,’ and signed it because the
mark on her back was made by no one else’s
teeth.” Richardson was pronounced guilty and
sentenced to 30 years in prison without the
possibility of parole.
Richardson was granted the right to submit
a swab recovered from the bite mark to
DNA testing, but testing was inconclusive.
His attorneys eventually sought help from
the Innocence Project, which took over his
representation. The remaining evidence was
submitted once again for testing, and the lab
detected a complete male DNA profile from the
evidence that excluded Richardson.
After Somerset County Prosecutor Soriano
conceded that the new evidence entitled him to
a new trial, Judge Marino granted Richardson’s
motion on October 28, 2013. On December 17,
2013, the indictment was dismissed.

31

Jonathan Montgomery
Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project

On December 20, 2013, Jonathan Montgomery
of Virginia was exonerated after serving three
years for a sexual assault that never actually
happened.
In 2007, a 17-year-old woman reported that
Montgomery sexually assaulted in her backyard
in Hampton, Virginia, seven years prior, when
she was 10 years old and Montgomery was 14
years old. The accuser identified Montgomery
in a photo lineup using his high school
yearbook photo.

17

On October 15, 2007, Montgomery was
arrested. Police said that Montgomery had
committed the crime on approximately
January 12, 2001, but upon discovering that
Montgomery had actually moved out of state by
that date, they issued a new warrant which stated
that the crime happened between September
2000 and December 2000.
Montgomery was tried and convicted in a oneday trial in June 2008. At the trial, the accuser
testified that she did not report the assault in
2000 because she was embarrassed and afraid
of how her parents might react. She said that
she was prompted to contact the police seven
years later because she thought she had recently
seen Montgomery at a store in town. In 2009,
Montgomery was sentenced, based entirely on
the accuser’s testimony, to 45 years in prison,
with 37 years and 6 months suspended.
In 2012, the accuser contacted a friend who
worked for the local police department and
recanted her accusation and testimony; she
said that Montgomery had never sexually
assaulted her. In a voluntary confession, she
explained that a few days prior to her accusing
Montgomery, her mother had found her
looking at internet porn. Out of fear, she told
her mother that she was looking at the adult
material because she had been molested years
prior, and reluctantly named Montgomery as
the attacker.
On November 19, 2012, Montgomery requested
that Governor Robert McDonnell grant a
conditional pardon, releasing him during
the period in which he could file a Writ of
Actual Innocence. The governor granted the
conditional pardon and Montgomery was
immediately released from prison.
On December 20, 2012, Montgomery filed
a petition with the court for a writ of actual
innocence. Based on new testimony from
the victim that she lied about being sexually
assaulted by Montgomery, the court declared
Montgomery innocent on December 20, 2013,
exactly one year to the day that he filed his
petition to the court.

18

INNOCENCE NETWORK EXONERATIONS 2013

NETWORK MEMBERS
Alaska Innocence Project

Innocence Project New Orleans

Arizona Innocence Project

Innocence Project New Zealand

Arizona Justice Project

Innocence Project Northwest Clinic

Association in Defense of the Wrongly
Convicted (AIDWC)

Innocence Project of Florida

California Innocence Project
Center on Wrongful Convictions
Committee for Public Counsel Services
Innocence Program
Connecticut Innocence Project
Thomas M. Cooley Law School Innocence
Project

Innocence Project of Iowa
Innocence Project of Minnesota
Innocence Project of Texas
Irish Innocence Project at Griffith College
Kentucky Innocence Project
Knoops and Partners Innocence Project
Life After Innocence

Duke Center for Criminal Justice and
Professional Responsibility

Michigan Innocence Clinic

France Innocence Project

Midwest Innocence Project

Georgia Innocence Project

Mississippi Innocence Project

Griffith University Innocence Project

Montana Innocence Project

Hawaii Innocence Project

Nebraska Innocence Project

Indiana University School of Law Clinic,
Wrongful Conviction Component

New England Innocence Project

Idaho Innocence Project
Illinois Innocence Project
Innocence and Justice Project at the University
of New Mexico School of Law

Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project

North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence
Northern California Innocence Project
Office of the Ohio Public Defender, Wrongful
Conviction Project

Innocence Network UK

Office of the Public Defender, State of
Delaware

Innocence Project

Ohio Innocence Project

Innocence Project at the University of Virginia

Oklahoma Innocence Project

19

Osgoode Hall Innocence Project
Pennsylvania Innocence Project
Reinvestigation Project
Resurrection After Exoneration
Rocky Mountain Innocence Center
Texas Center for Actual Innocence
The Exoneration Initiative
The Sellenger Centre Criminal Justice Review
Project
The University of Leeds Innocence Project
Thurgood Marshall School of Law Innocence
Project
University of Baltimore Innocence Project
Clinic
University of British Columbia Law School
Innocence Project
University of Miami Law Innocence Clinic
Wake Forest University Law School Innocence
and Justice Clinic
Wesleyan Innocence Project
West Virginia Innocence Project
Wisconsin Innocence Project
Witness to Innocence

20 N E T W O R K M E M B E R S 						
INNOCENCE NETWORK EXONERATIONS 2013

INNOCENCE NETWORK

T

he Innocence Network is an affiliation of 63 member organizations
dedicated to providing pro bono legal and investigative services to
individuals seeking to prove innocence of crimes for which they have
been convicted and working to redress the causes of wrongful convictions.
For more on the Innocence Network and for information on how to contact
member organizations, please visit www.innocencenetwork.org.

21

BENNIE STARKS
KRISTINE BUNCH
GEORGE ALLEN
RONALD ROSS
GARRY DIAMOND
JOHNNY WILLIAMS
RANDY ARLEDGE
JERAMIE DAVIS
JOSEPH FREY
DEBRA BROWN
NICOLE HARRIS
URIAH COURTNEY
ROBERT NELSON
DANIEL TAYLOR
PAUL STATLER
TYLER GASSMAN
ROBERT LARSON
ANDREW JOHNSON
DEVON AYERS
CARLOS PEREZ
MICHAEL COSME
DAVID BOYCE
JERRY JENKINS
JOHN GREGA
LARRY LAMB
DERRICK DEACON
NOZAI THOMAS
ANDY MELAAN
CHEYDRICK BRITT
GERARD RICHARDSON
JONATHAN MONTGOMERY

WWW.INNOCENCENETWORK.ORG