Friday Roundup: Waiting for Freedom

01.22.10

Here are some stories of injustice, forensics and reform that we didn’t get to on the Innocence Blog this week:

Greg Taylor has been in prison in North Carolina for 17 years for a crime he has always said he didn’t commit. A hearing in his case is set for February 9, and

a three-judge panel this week denied prosecutors’ request for a delay

.

A Wisconsin man seeking to overturn his conviction for a murder he says he didn’t commit was

denied a new trial by a state judge this week

. A

recent book

tells the stories of Rey Moore and five other men convicted in the case.

We wrote last week about the exoneration of Michael Tillman in Chicago based on evidence of his innocence and signs that he was tortured into making a false confession. The New York Times reported that more than 20 other African-American men who say they were tortured by Chicago police during the same period

remain behind bars today

.

Questions continue to swirl around the accuracy and reliability of polygraph tests and voice-stress analysis, but a

report in Ohio

found that thousands of law enforcement agencies across the country still use the devices regularly.

A package of reforms addressing the causes of wrongful convictions and aiming to prevent injustice passed an Ohio House committee and is

headed for a vote by the House

.

DNA testing is being used more frequently in property crimes. Every day we see stories in the press of DNA testing in home burglaries (

like this one today in New Hampshire

). Officials in Dallas, Texas are on the cutting edge of using DNA tests to solve car thefts.

Dallas County recently received a $500,000 to expand the program

.

A new paper from Richard Leo and Jon Gould argues that

the legal community should give social science research more weight

in determining the causes of wrongful convictions and fixing the system to prevent future injustice.

Psychology Today blogger Art Markham explored

the best ways to conduct lineups

when one of the perpetrators has a scar or other identifying characteristic.


Exoneree Dennis Fritz was in Washington, D.C. this week

participating in an American Association for the Advancement of Science panel focused on survivors of human rights violations.

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