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95 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 523 (2004-2005)
Exonerations in the United States 1989 through 2003

handle is hein.journals/jclc95 and id is 535 raw text is: 0091-4169/05/9502-0523 THE JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL LAw & CRIMINOLOGy Vol. 95, No. 2 Copyright 0 2005 by Northwestern University, School of Law Printed in US.A. EXONERATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES 1989 THROUGH 2003 SAMUEL R. GROSS,* KRISTEN JACOBY,** DANIEL J. MATHESON,*** NICHOLAS MONTGOMERY & SUJATA PATILtt On August 14, 1989, the Cook County Circuit Court in Chicago, Illi- nois, vacated Gary Dotson's 1979 rape conviction and dismissed the charges.1 Mr. Dotson-who had spent ten years in and out of prison and on parole for this conviction-was not the first innocent prisoner to be exoner- ated and released in America. But his case was a breakthrough nonetheless: he was the first who was cleared by DNA identification technology. It was the beginning of a revolution in the American criminal justice system. Un- til then, exonerations of falsely convicted defendants were seen as aberra- tional. Since 1989, these once-rare events have become disturbingly com- monplace. This is a report on a study of exonerations in the United States from 1989 through 2003. We discuss all exonerations that we have been able to locate that occurred in that fifteen-year period, and that resulted from inves- * Thomas & Mabel Long Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School (srgross@umich.edu). The authors thank Phoebe C. Ellsworth and James S. Liebman, for valuable comments on earlier drafts, and Joanne L.Werdel for excellent research assistance. We are also grateful to the many people-too many to name-who drew our attention to ex- onerations we would otherwise have missed. Our work depended on their assistance. The research for this study was supported by a grant from The Gideon Project of the Open Soci- ety Institute. University of Michigan Law School, J.D. candidate, May 2005; Wellesley College, B.A., 1997. *.. Associate, King & Spalding LLP, Washington, D.C.; University of Michigan Law School, J.D., May 2004. 1 University of Michigan Department of Economics and Ford School of Public Policy, Ph.D. candidate, 2007. tt Research Biostatistician, Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, The Chil- dren's Hospital of Philadelphia; University of Michigan School of Public Health, MPH, 1998, Ph.D., 2004. 1 Rob Warden, Center on Wrongful Convictions, The Rape That Wasn t: The First DNA Exoneration in Illinois, available at http://www.law.northwestem.edu/depts/clinic/wrongful/ exonerations/Dotson.htm (last visited Jan. 11, 2005).

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