"It sends a strong message: Massachusetts is not the place you want to engage in a crime of arson,'' he said last month in an interview. "We're always open for ways to improve, but I think we really set the benchmark for the way fire investigations should and can be conducted.''

What happened since the Innocence Project really went into business in 1992 is really a movement, a civil rights movement, an innocence movement that is really transformed the way that the criminal justice system looks at error and looks at the interrelationship of science and results. And the one thing we know, because of post-conviction DNA tests is that there are far more innocent people than anybody ever really believed.
...
We who work within the criminal justice system where the life and liberty of the people are at stake have to have some humility. That's really what these DNA exonerations are teaching us.

Now the ball is in the Legislature's court. We call on the Legislature and the next governor to make the reliability and integrity of our criminal justice system a top priority in the coming session - fairness and justice shouldn't be partisan issues.

"Despite the evidence supporting his guilt and the substantial legal review of Mr. Keith's conviction, many legitimate questions have been raised regarding the evidence in support of the conviction and the investigation which led to it. In particular, Mr. Keith's conviction relied upon the linking of certain eyewitness testimony with certain forensic evidence about which important questions have been raised. I also find the absence of a full investigation of other credible suspects troubling.
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Clearly, the careful exercise of a governor's executive clemency authority is appropriate in a case like this one, given the real and unanswered questions surrounding the murders for which Mr. Keith was convicted. Mr. Keith still has appellate legal proceedings pending which, in theory, could ultimately result in his conviction being overturned altogether."

...Mark Rabil, co-director of the Wake Forest University School of Law's Innocence & Justice Clinic...said the SBI has tried for years to "dupe" the public with lab results that do not meet scientific standard set for forensics.

"Truth is transparent," Rabil said. "We now know that just because your wear a badge and carry a gun doesn't mean you tell the truth."

Read the full story here.

While it should go without saying that a cover-up or concealing evidence is grounds for being fired, the New Orleans Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas made a point to announce the new rule.

"If you lie, you die," Superintendent Serpas said in announcing the new standard. "If you tell this Police Department a lie about anything, you will be terminated."

The new rule is part of a larger strategy announced by Serpas and New Orleans to repair the city's police department. Department-wide reviews by the U.S. Justice Department and an audit of questionable crime statistics are also part of the plan.

While most law enforcement officers and prosecutors are honest and trustworthy, the possibility for corruption exists. Even if one officer of every thousand is dishonest, wrongful convictions will continue to occur. The police misconduct in the NOPD taints the reputation of their honest colleagues.

Read the full op-ed here.

Learn how government misconduct can lead to wrongful convictions here.

"When you're drunk and you're being stabbed by someone at 4 a.m. within an inch of your life, it's pretty understandable he can't remember the details," he said. "No one is blaming the victim in this case. He was trying to make an identification under difficult circumstances."

- Sixty-five of the first 255 DNA exoneration cases involved appeals and/or civil lawsuits alleging prosecutorial misconduct.

- In nearly half of those 65 cases, courts found prosecutorial misconduct or error.

- In 18% of the prosecutorial misconduct claims in wrongful conviction cases, courts overturned convictions or found harmful error - a rate nearly identical to harmful error findings in a larger study of misconduct allegations, including thousands of cases where defendants did not claim innocence.

- Improper argument at trial and withheld evidence of innocence were the forms of misconduct alleged most commonly by wrongfully convicted defendants.

"Mr. Davis vastly overstates the value of his evidence of innocence. ... Some of the evidence is not credible and would be disregarded by a reasonable juror. ... Other evidence that Mr. Davis brought forward is too general to provide anything more than smoke and mirrors," the court found.

"Mike could really change the world," Wicoff said of his new employee. "He's in a position to be instrumental in making all sorts of important changes in Austin, with new legislation. His case could be an example of the changes we need to make."

"I love the law, and I want to try to get some of the other fellows out," the 45-year-old said.

If a prosecutor or a detective is totally unable to admit they're wrong in one case, what that tells you is that they will be making dozens and dozens more erroneous decisions, because they're not allowing new information to affect their views.... I think generally speaking it's difficult for people to admit they're wrong, and the higher the stakes, the more difficult it becomes. So what you really want to do is educate people that it's OK to be wrong. It doesn't mean you're a fool. It's not going to be the end of your life.

"The documented policies and practices of our state lab support the long-held concern that North Carolina's lab is the prosecution's lab, not the justice system's lab," said Christine Mumma, executive director of the N.C. Center on Actual Innocence, which works to free wrongly convicted prisoners. "Public confidence, judicial confidence and the lives of innocent citizens have been destroyed. It is past time for change."

"Everybody ought to understand that this is something that needs to be fixed," said State Rep. Mickey Michaux, a Durham Democrat who heads the powerful budget committee.

"We have an innocent man on death row who has been languishing there, and there is absolutely no evidence that a crime occurred," said his [new] attorney, David Fryman. "We've been trying our best to right that wrong."

"This never seemed right. A man with his family in the car -- his pregnant wife -- goes on a suicide mission? Then, the recalls started, and the complaints sounded just like what happened to Mr. Lee," Schafer said in March. "It sounds just like a case of unintended acceleration."