On August 5th, 2008, Aaron Michael Howard was released from prison after serving almost twenty years for a crime he did not commit. In 1990, Howard and three co-defendants were sentenced to 21 years to life for the 1988 murder of Bobby Parker in Washington, D.C.Parker, 23, was stopped at a red light at Chesapeake Street and Southern Avenue in Southeast Washington when he was shot eight times. Howard was one of four young men from the surrounding neighborhood who were charged and eventually convicted of the crime.

While the government's evidence against two of Howard's three co-defendants was very strong, there was hardly any evidence connecting Howard to the murder. At trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney David Saffern called a total of 26 witnesses. But only two of those 26 placed Howard at the murder scene—Bobby Taylor, a man with a history of psychiatric problems, and his sister, Caroline Thompson. When asked by Saffern to identify Howard in the courtroom, Thompson pointed to one of Howard’s co-defendants, further undermining her and her brother’s already weak testimony.

At the time of the murder, Howard was at home his mother and other friends. While he gave his court-appointed lawyer Nathan Silver the names and addresses of his alibi witnesses, Silver failed to interview them and see if they could vouch for his whereabouts. Despite the weak evidence implicating him, Howard was convicted along with his other co-defendants.

In 2002, Howard filed a motion under the relatively new DC Innocence Protection Act, reopening his case for investigation. In 2006, D.C. Superior Court Judge James Boasberg assigned Howard’s case to D.C. criminal defense attorney Zack Rosenburg. After working on the case for a year, Rosenburg explained to Seth Rosenthal that while the case was promising, there was just too much evidence to explore. Since Rosenthal sat on the board of directors of the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project, he asked if Rosenthal could help out. After getting approval from his law firm, Venable LLP, Rosenthal agreed.

Howard’s legal team filed its amended motion to vacate Howard’s conviction on April 28th, 2008, which included multiple declarations they had obtained from various witnesses. With the help of private investigator Ronetta Johnson, Howard’s attorneys secured two declarations from eyewitnesses saying Howard was not at the crime scene and three declarations from witnesses who said they only saw three gunmen. Another declaration came from the mother of Caroline Thompson and Bobby Taylor, who said that her children were home with her at the time of the murder, making them unable to have seen anything, let alone Howard, at the crime scene.

The legal team interviewed Howard’s co-defendants multiple times and secured declarations from all three stating that Howard took no part in the murder. In addition to affirming that Howard was not involved in the crime, these statements established the involvement of a fourth individual other than Howard—an individual the government was aware of shortly after the murder but failed to investigate diligently. That fourth man, identified as the triggerman in Parker's shooting, had since passed away. The new statements were corroborated by a vast amount of other evidence, including forensic evidence and testimony introduced at trial, eyewitness accounts the government possessed but did not present at trial, and other documentary evidence that had emerged in the years since Howard’s conviction. The newly discovered evidence was so convincing that the lead prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney T. Anthony Quinn, withdrew from the case, stating that he could no longer defend the jury’s guilty verdict.

On July 29th, prosecutors offered Howard a deal. If he would agree to a voluntary manslaughter conviction, then his other convictions and sentences would be vacated. The agreement would impose a sentence of time served, no term of probation, no possible term of parole, and no government supervision. If accepted, Howard would be released from custody. Facing the prospect of a second wrongful conviction (and having already spent two decades in prison), Howard agreed to the deal on August 3rd, which was approved by Judge Boasberg.

On August 5th, 2008, Howard left prison. Although Howard was released, he unfortunately is not considered officially “exonerated.” "The agreement … is not perfect," Howard said in a written statement. "It is not perfect because, although it allows me to maintain my innocence, it requires me to accept a conviction for a crime I did not commit.”

Howard now lives in Alexandria, VA with his wife, Gabrielle. Because of his plea, he has received no compensation for his wrongful conviction.

Click here to watch Aaron Michael Howard speak at the 2009 MAIP Awards Luncheon

Victor "Bo" Burnette served 8 years in prison for a 1979 rape he did not commit.  A DNA test cleared Burnette, 56, of the crime, over two decades after having been paroled in Virginia.

A rape of a 19-year-old woman occurred in Richmond, Virginia in 1979: the woman woke up on the night on August 3rd to a man having intercourse with her.  She pushed him off of her, and when he moved towards the door, she testified that she “got a very good look at him.”  The next day, she spotted Victor Burnette on her street and believed he was the rapist.

It was this eyewitness identification, in conjunction with the testimony of state forensic serologist Mary Jane Burton, that convicted Burnette.  Burton testified that a hair found at the scene “was consistent” with Burnette’s – meaning that it was merely similar – and that spermatozoa was detected at the scene.  Forensic testing at the time was not sophisticated enough to verify whether or not the DNA found on the scene belonged to Burnette.  Burnette, despite having told the jury that he was home that evening caring for his ill grandmother, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the rape and burglary.

After being paroled in 1987, Burnette sought out DNA testing.  He was told that the forensic evidence from his case had been destroyed – “If you’re found guilty, your stuff is destroyed,” he recalls hearing.  As a convicted rapist, Burnette was unable to secure a job.  He taught himself carpentry, and started his own one-man home improvement company (that he still runs today), living a somewhat reclusive life.

Then one morning in December 2005, Burnette read an article in The Richmond Times-Dispatch, detailing how Julius Earl Ruffin and Arthur Whitfield were cleared of their convictions through DNA evidence.  Both of these cases involved Mary Jane Burton, the forensic scientist who testified against him: she had died in 1999, and left behind her files, where she had kept hundreds of small samples of evidence for her own records – there was no indicated reason why. Those cases were the catalysts for what is now the Virginia Old Case Testing Program.

Burnette, riding his bike over to the lab each day, pleaded with lab workers to again look for evidence in his now 26-year-old file.  The lab workers told him the test results had been forwarded to a Richmond prosecutor. He persuaded the prosecutor to give him the results over the phone: The evidence "eliminated" Burnette as a "contributor" to the DNA sample taken from the victim's rape kit.  "I knew what they had to be, but I just wanted to hear it from somebody. And she said, 'It wasn't you.' And it was great news."

Though the victim says she does not believe the results, two Virginia Department of Forensic Science reports from 2006 confirmed that Burnette was “eliminated as a contributor” of the evidence. 

After receiving the test results, Burnette applied for a pardon from Governor Tim Kaine.  The pardon application was finally granted on April 8, 2009. Burnette became the sixth person to be exonerated from the forensic evidence that Burton kept, and the first actual exoneration under the Old Case Testing Program.

To watch Victor speak about his case at the 2009 MAIP Awards Luncheon, click here

As part of our efforts to connect with more people interested in the work we do, the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project recently joined Facebook Causes.

Our causes page features multimedia about our work and about exonerees from around the country. It also will have up to date news about MAIP events and legal developments.

Continue your support for MAIP by joining our cause .

In the five weeks since he was granted a conditional pardon and released from prison, Derek Tice began to start his life over. After twelve years in prison, the Navy veteran landed a construction job and got his first cell phone and e-mail address. On Monday, the member of the group known as the Norfolk Four received a phone call that will change his life forever.

U.S. District Judge Richard L. Williams vacated Tice's conviction for the 1997 rape and murder of Michelle Moore-Bosko, on the grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel. In doing so, Judge Williams granted the habeas corpus petition filed by Tice's attorneys, including MAIP Board Member Des Hogan.

Tice was released from prison in August along with Danial Williams and Joseph Dick after VA Gov. Timothy Kaine granted the men a conditional pardon . While the pardon released the men from prison, it did not establish their innocence for the crimes.

The men confessed to the crimes during high-pressure interrogations. In the brief, Tice's attorneys argued that his trial attorney should have tried to keep jurors from hearing his confession on the grounds that police continued to question him after he had invoked his right to remain silent. The federal judge agreed with that statement.

"Had counsel pursued such a motion, there is a reasonable probability that Tice would not have been convicted," Williams wrote. 

A fifth man, Omar Ballard, has confessed to the crimes and is currently incarcerated for killing Moore-Bosko.  All of the DNA and forensic evidence from the crime scene match him, his confession is the only one that accurately describes the crime scene and he has continually said that he acted alone in the crime.

Tice told the Associated Press that he was "flabbergasted" by the news and that "hopefully this is one more step to get my life back, and get back to where I was before all this happened." He added that he will continue to fight to help Dick, Williams and Eric Wilson, completely clear their names of the crime.

To read the Judge's ruling that exonerated Derek Tice, click here.

Michael Austin was released from prison in 2001 at the age of 52 after serving 27 years for a crime he did not commit.

Austin was convicted in 1975 of killing a convenience store security guard in East Baltimore. His arrest was based on a mug-shot identification by a clerk at the store who originally told detectives that the shooter was a light-skinned black man, about 5 feet 8 inches tall and 140 pounds. Austin, however, is 6 feet 5 inches tall, dark-skinned, and 210 pounds. Despite these inconsistencies, the clerk again identified Austin in court as the shooter. The only physical evidence against Austin was a business card that had scribbled on it the name of an alleged accomplice, a man who was later freed by police.

In 1997, Centurion Ministries, a non-profit organization that seeks to reverse wrongful convictions, took on Austin’s case. They were able to produce new evidence of Austin’s innocence that was subsequently presented at a 2001 evidentiary hearing. This information included an eyewitness to the crime who never testified in Austin’s original trial. Erik Komitsky, the assistant manager of the convenience store, testified that the shooter was not taller than him because he stood eyeball to eyeball with him. Komitsky is 5 feet 9 inches tall, considerably shorter than Austin.

Even Joe Wase, the man who prosecuted Austin in 1975, affirmed Austin’s innocence, saying to The Baltimore Sun in 1999, "I put a man behind bars who I'm now totally convinced is innocent."

Austin was freed from the Maryland House of Corrections by Baltimore Circuit Court Judge John Carroll Byrnes on December 28, 2001. A week later, on January 3, 2002, the Baltimore City State's Attorney decided not to retry Austin, and all charges were dismissed. Judge Byrnes noted that several errors had been committed in Austin’s original trial. Most notably, Austin’s defense attorney was ruled incompetent for failing to subpoena witnesses or a timecard from Austin's employer. Introducing this evidence would have shown that he had just left work at the time of the killing, which happened too far from the factory that he worked at for him to get there in time. According to Judge Byrnes, the prosecution also committed numerous errors and the trial judge gave faulty instructions to the jurors.

Austin received a full pardon from Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich in 2003, which permitted him to seek compensation from the state. In 2004, he was awarded $1.4 million for his 27 years of wrongful imprisonment. Since his release, Austin has spent his time working with former convicts to help them make the transition to life after prison. He has also started a jazz band called Michael Austin and True Spirit, for which he plays trumpet and keyboard.

On February 15, 1975, Leslie Vass was a 17 year old high school senior and basketball player, with no criminal record. All of this would change when he made his daily trip to Baltimore’s Westport Pharmacy, to purchase a newspaper for his mother. Upon entering the store, Vass was identified by Joseph Chester as one of the three men who had robbed him four months earlier, while he was making a delivery to the pharmacy. While it took another week for Chester to contact the police and identify him, Vass was arrested and charged with armed robbery. Vass was tried as an adult in the Baltimore City Circuit Court in a bench trial. The prosecution’s case consisted solely of Joseph Chester’s identification of Leslie Vass as the perpetrator. Despite inconsistencies in his testimony, Chester remained steadfast and made an in-court identification of Vass.

Vass’ defense counsel did not conduct any pretrial investigation and rested his entire defense upon his client’s testimony. The Court credited Chester’s testimony and found Leslie Vass guilty of robbery with a dangerous and deadly weapon and use of a handgun in the commission of a felony. He was given a combined sentence of twenty years imprisonment.  On appeal, his conviction was affirmed, with the Court of Special Appeals finding that Joseph Chester’s in-court identification was sufficient to sustain a conviction.

While in prison, Vass was approached by an inmate who claimed to have knowledge of the case. The inmate claimed that his brother, Bucky Nutt, had committed the robbery. He gave Vass a photograph of Nutt, taken around the time of the crime. Vass sent the photograph to the Maryland Public Defender’s Office, who sent an investigator to show the picture to Chester. Upon viewing the photograph, Chester became convinced that he had identified the wrong man and indicated his willingness to testify on Leslie’s Vass’ behalf. Based upon this evidence, the Circuit Court for Baltimore City vacated Vass’ conviction on May 5, 1986. On August 15, 1986, Governor Harry Hughes granted Vass a full and unconditional pardon.   

Unfortunately, Leslie Vass continues to be scarred by his erroneous conviction. Upon his release, he sued several state agencies, seeking compensation for his wrongful imprisonment. In 1987, he settled his claim with the State of Maryland for $250,000. Despite this settlement and multiple court orders mandating that his conviction be taken off his record, Maryland officials have not expunged the conviction from Vass’ record. The presence of this erroneous conviction has largely prevented Vass from obtaining a paying job. After fourteen years of fruitless fighting, Vass finally sued the state in 1999, settling for $50,000, though the terms prevent him from seeking future payment.

In spite of all this, Leslie Vass enjoyed a brief period of stability after obtaining a BA in Sociology and a certificate in Paralegal Studies. He was able to acquire a job as a placement counselor with the Maryland Job Service in 1999. Over the next five years, Vass won many awards and commendations. Even so, he lost his job in 2003, when the position was abruptly eliminated.

Vass’ criminal conviction continued to haunt him in 2004, when he was accused of involvement in a stabbing. Although he was ultimately acquitted of all charges, his prior conviction was used as a basis to incarcerate him without bail, prior to trial. Vass eventually lost his home and the state placed his children in foster care.

Today, he continues his efforts to lobby Maryland to live up to the spirit of its settlements and expunge his conviction. While he has yet to succeed in his fight, Vass maintains his optimism by devoting his time to advocacy work with organizations supporting wrongfully convicted persons, including the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project