Anthony Gray had spent seven years in prison for a rape and murder he did not commit before finally being released in February 1999.  In 1991, 38-year-old Linda Mae Pellicano was found stabbed and raped in her Chesapeake Beach, MD home.  Anthony Gray was arrested, and authorities told him that two other men who had been arrested had implicated him, in order to make him confess.  Gray, who has a below-average IQ, did confess, and eventually pleaded guilty to first degree murder and first degree rape, believing that it would allow him to avoid the death penalty.  He was sentenced…

On November 7, 2002, Bernard Webster became the first person to be exonerated under a new Maryland DNA law, after spending twenty years in prison for a break-in and rape he did not commit. In July 1982, a 47-year-old schoolteacher came home to her Towson apartment in the middle of the afternoon.  She heard a rustling in her closet, and when she walked into her bedroom, a black man jumped out and attacked her.  The victim told the jury that the man put what he said was a gun to her back, covered her head with a bathrobe, forced her…

In 1987, Guy "Gordy" Marsh was released from prison after serving 14 years in prison for a murder he did not commit and was set up for by a detective. On June 28th, 1971, Charles Erdman was murdered inside a Glen Burnie, Maryland 7-Eleven on Crain Highway after attempting to stop a robbery that was in progress by two masked men. The main witness against Marsh at trial was Linda Packech, a heroin addict with a lengthy criminal record. She claimed to have seen Marsh come out of the 7-Eleven and raise his mask. Her testimony was the primary evidence…

Thanks in large part to the work of the Innocence Project of Texas, a Dallas man was pardoned by Texas Gov. Rick Perry Wednesday, nearly thirty years after he was wrongfully accused of of raping and killing his girlfriend. James Lee Woodard was originally released from prison in April 2008 after a DNA-retesting program run by the new Dallas District Attorney cleared him of the 1980 murder of  Beverly Ann Jones. He had spent 27 years behind bars for a crime he consistently denied doing. DNA testing was unavailable at the time of the crime. On Wednesday, the Governor officially…

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…

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…

Five years ago, Cameron Todd Willingham was executed for setting the fire that killed his three young daughters. Now, a fire expert hired by the state that sentenced him to death has concluded that Willingham was incapable of committing arson. In a report to the Texas Forensic Science Commission released last week, the International Association of Fire Saftety Science ruled out the possibility of arson as the cause of the fire that killed 2-year-old Amber and 1-year-old twins Karmon and Kameron on Dec. 23, 1991, in their Corsicana home. A number of other experts have concluded that no arson took…

After More Than 11 Years, Justice Still Eludes the Norfolk Four After spending more than 11 harsh years in prison for a crime they did not commit, Joseph J. Dick, Jr., Derek E. Tice, and Danial J. Williams, became free men Thursday.  Governor Timothy M. Kaine of Virginia granted conditional pardons to the Navy veterans but fell short of granting absolute pardons based on innocence. A fourth innocent sailor, Eric C. Wilson, was released in 2005 after serving 8 ½ years in prison. His clemency request was denied today by Governor Kaine.

A team of Jones Day attorneys recruited by the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project helped a seventeen-year old boy from Ghana who had been forced into involuntary servitude have his sentence vacated July 30th after being held for months for a crime he could not legally be charged for. The boy, whose name is sealed, was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor when he began a relationship with the fifteen-year old daughter of the man with whom he was living.

Twenty-eight years after he was convicted of a pair of rapes he did not commit, Arthur Lee Whitfield continues to wait. He waited in prison for twenty-two years before DNA proved his innocence and he was freed on parole. He had to wait nearly five more years until last April, when VA Gov. Tim Kaine granted him a pardon. Now a free and exonerated man, Whitfield is still waiting for the compensation that will allow him to get his life on track. In the time since he was released, Whitfield has struggled to get by. His job does not provide…