List of Miscarriage of Justice Cases - List of Cases - United States - 2008

2008

• A Colorado judge ordered on January 22, 2008, the immediate release of Tim Masters after finding that exculpatory evidence had been withheld from his defense team. DNA research by Richard Eikelenboom from Independent Forensic Services in Nunspeet also cast doubt on his conviction with the Peggy Hettrick murder case in 1987 in Fort Collins. However, the DNA was that of the victim's boyfriend and may not be indicative of a crime.
• David Scott was released from prison after DNA evidence determined he was not the man who killed 89-year-old Loretta Keith of West Terre Haute.
• Lynn DeJac, convicted of killing her daughter, was exonerated after a judge overturned her conviction based on new DNA evidence implicating her former boyfriend in the killing.
• Rachel Jernigan, convicted of bank robbery in 2001, was released from prison after another woman confessed to the crime.
• Willie Earl Green, sent to prison in 1983 for the murder of a woman, was released after a change in testimony.
• Robert Gonzales, a mentally retarded man who falsely confessed to the slaying of an 11-year-old girl in 2005 was released from jail after a national database matched DNA in the case to another man in custody for another crime.
• Patrick Waller, who was convicted for a robbery in which four people were abducted and a woman was raped, has been exonerated.
• Raymond H. Jonassen spent four months in jail based on information that turned out to be false.
• Dean Cage was exonerated of a rape conviction after 14 years in prison.
• Walter Swift was wrongly convicted of raping a pregnant Detroit woman in 1982.
• Levon Junior "Bo" Jones, sentenced to death for the 1987 murder and robbery of Leamon Grady, was released after nearly 15 years in prison.
• James Lee Woodard was released from prison after DNA tests and changes in witness testimony proved that he did not rape and murder his 21-year-old girlfriend in 1980.
• Cynthia Sommer, convicted of killing her Marine husband with arsenic to pay for breast implants, was cleared after new tests showed no traces of poison.
• Thomas Clifford McGowan was freed after spending nearly 23 years in prison for a rape he did not commit.
• Nathaniel Hatchett, who spent 12 years in prison for rape, was released after prosecutors decided to drop charges based on DNA evidence that shows he was not the rapist.
• Glen Chapman, who spent 14 years on death row, was released after the District Attorney dismissed murder charges against him.
• Guy Randolph was exonerated by a court judge after the district attorney's office acknowledged that he had been wrongly convicted.
• Hattie Douglas's charge of murdering her 11-month-old son by poisoning him with alcohol was dismissed in May 2008. The murder charge was dropped after new tests cast doubt on the theory that the death of her son was caused by alcohol.
• Ada Joanne Taylor, Joseph White, Thomas Winslow, and three others were wrongly convicted in a murder and rape case Ada Joanne Taylor confessed to police of being part of the crime after she was told that she would be the first woman to receive the death penalty in Nebraska.
• Arthur Johnson was exonerated after spending 15½ years in jail.