Friday Roundup: Two Freed in New York

11.20.09

It was a big week for freedom in the face of injustice, but the fight against wrongful conviction and unreliable forensics goes on. Here are few stories we didn’t get to on the Innocence Blog this week:

Fernando Bermudez, who served 18 years in New York prisons for a murder evidence shows he didn’t commit,

was freed just after 2 p.m. today

, pumping his fist in the air before embracing his wife. We posted on the case last week,

when his conviction was tossed out

.

Yesterday in New York City, Lebrew Jones was freed on parole, ending 22 years in prison for a murder he has long said he didn’t commit. The Innocence Project consulted on the case with Jones’ pro bono lawyers at David Polk and Wardwell.

Watch a video of his release and read more about his case

.

The Innocence Network

filed a friend-of-the-court brief

in the case of an Ohio man convicted of murder in 1996 based on gunshot residue evidence, which has been shown to be unreliable. Derrick Wheat is seeking a new trial to present evidence that the gunshot residue findings used against him were questionable.

New York Times columnist David Carr

covered the ongoing dispute

between prosecutors and the Medill Innocence Project over student records, and the Daily Northwestern posted

an exclusive interview with Professor David Protess

.

The Ohio Public Defender’s Office

launched a new project

to review and appeal cases of possible wrongful conviction that don’t involve DNA evidence.

Two Innocence Network member organizations posted new videos this week. The Center on Wrongful Convictions posted a video about

the wrongful conviction of Alan Beaman

and the Michigan Innocence Clinic posted a video about

the release release of Dwayne Provience

. Reason Magazine also covered the

Provience case

.

Two men freed after a combined 35 years in prison for crimes they didn’t commit

spoke at Arizona State University

. The BBC featured the case of

John Thompson

, who served 14 years on Louisiana’s death row before he was set free.

 

Iowa State University Psychologist Gary Wells, a leading expert on eyewitness identification, spoke recently about

two new eyewitness studies he’s conducting

.

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