In the National Registry of Exonerations' new report, Race and Wrongful Convictions in the United States, researchers looked at the 1,900 exonerations reported in the Registry between 1989 and October 2016. They found that while African Americans comprise only 13 percent of the population, they comprise 47 percent of those who were exonerated. This disparity cuts across all major crimes committed, but the report focuses on the three categories where exonerations are most frequent: murder, sexual assault, and drug crimes.
"There's no doubt anymore that innocent people get convicted regularly—that's beyond dispute," said Barbara O'Brien, a Michigan State University law professor and editor for the registry, in a press release.
Black people are seven times more likely than white people to be wrongfully convicted of murder, and cases where black people were exonerated were 22 percent more likely to involve police misconduct than cases involving white people.
For example, Walter McMillian was sentenced to life in prison in 1988 for the 1986 murder of a white woman in Monroeville, Alabama. The only evidence against McMillian was testimony by Ralph Myers, who was arrested for murdering another woman in a nearby town. Police told Myers that they had witnesses who would testify that he had murdered the woman in Monroeville along with McMillian, who was also known in the community because he had a white girlfriend. Despite six alibi witnesses who placed him at a fish fry at the time of the murder, the mostly white jury sentenced McMillian to life in prison; a judge Rea more......
