Exonerations hit record high in 2014

Kevin Johnson | USA TODAY

An unprecedented 125 exonerations were recorded in the USA last year, and a majority of the cases involved the cooperation of an unlikely ally: law enforcement.

Prosecutors and police initiated or cooperated in reversing at least 67 wrongful convictions, also a record number, according to a report by the National Registry of Exonerations.

The report linked the law enforcement involvement to the relatively recent emergence of special prosecutorial units that examine convictions based on bad evidence, false testimony, coerced confessions and other breakdowns.

The special prosecutor units have grown in number from the first in 2002 to 15 last year. The most active last year were in Houston and Brooklyn, which assisted in a combined 39 exonerations of people wrongfully convicted of crimes, ranging from murder to drug offenses.

"I think there is a seachange in the thinking related to the fallibility of the criminal justice system,'' said University of Michigan law professor Samuel Gross, co-founder of the registry. "It turns out that (wrongful conviction) is a much more common problem than everybody realizes.''

The report found that the legal system is "increasingly willing to act on innocence claims that have often been ignored.''

Though the use of biological evidence (DNA) has perhaps gained the most notoriety in exoneration cases, an increasing number are proved with other evidence and in cases where it has been determined no crime was committed.

In 46% (58) of the 125 exonerations last year, no crime occurred, according to the report.

Murder cases involved a substantial portion of the wrongful convictions, in 38% (48) of the cases.

Kings County, N.Y., which includes Brooklyn, recorded 10 murder exonerations last year as part of a sweeping review of controversial convictions, many of them involving questionable police tactics used by a New York Police Department detective. It has added one case this year.

"People are coming to the understanding that wrongful convictions are not only destroying the lives of people who have been wrongly punished, but they also are undermining the integrity of the criminal justice system,'' said Kings County District Attorney Kenneth Thompson.

Thompson has assigned 10 prosecutors to review questionable convictions. The unit started with 130 cases and has 100 left to examine.

"We are committed to this process,'' Thompson said.

Jeff Blackburn, chief counsel for the Innocence Project of Texas, said that as each "failure" of the criminal justice system'' has been identified, it has become "more politically acceptable to fight this fight.''

"Everybody knows now that innocent people get locked up,'' Blackburn said. "Prosecutors are figuring out that they need to get on the right side of this.''