My Story

On March 10, 2015, Angel Gonzalez was exonerated after serving over 20 years in prison for a rape that he did not commit.

In 1994, Mr. Gonzalez was misidentified as the attacker when police used a highly unreliable and suggestive identification procedure. After he was arrested, he was misled by police into signing a false confession. Despite having four alibi witnesses testify in his defense in court, Mr. Gonzalez was wrongly convicted of aggravated sexual assault and aggravated kidnapping and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Although Mr. Gonzalez maintained his innocence from the beginning, it wasn’t until 2013 that he was finally able to prove his innocence through DNA testing. Today, he is a member of the Innocence Project’s Exoneree Advisory Council.

In May 2017, Carlos Sanchez was released after spending nearly 25 years — more than half of his life — in prison for a murder he maintains he did not commit.

Mr. Sanchez was only 17, when, after an eight-hour interrogation by police without a lawyer or guardian present, he signed a confession taking responsibility for the 1992 murder of his girlfriend. The confession was the only evidence linking him to the crime, and it was obtained under conditions now known to be associated with false confessions. The statement was also at odds with physical evidence collected in the case.

In January 2017, Mr. Sanchez was granted parole. He is still fighting to prove his innocence.

On April 3, 2003, Eddie Lowery had his conviction vacated and his case dismissed after spending nine years in prison for a rape he did not commit.

In July 1981, a 74-year-old woman was attacked while sleeping in her home in Ogden, Kansas. Mr. Lowery was brought in for questioning and was interrogated all day without food so that police could procure a confession. Although he later recanted the statements, he was wrongly convicted in 1982 based on the confession and the misapplication of forensic science.

In 2002, Mr. Lowery was able to procure DNA testing on the biological evidence, and in September of that year, DNA test results confirmed his claim of innocence.

On Jan. 24, 2019, Huwe Burton, who spent 19 years in prison for a murder he did not commit, was exonerated. 

At 16 years old, Mr. Burton was convicted of the 1989 murder of his mother, who had been found stabbed to death in their New York City home. His conviction was largely based on a false confession that had been coerced by detectives.

A joint reinvestigation between the Innocence Project and the Bronx District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit uncovered that detectives from New York’s 47th precinct had coerced Mr. Burton into falsely confessing. Furthermore, additional new evidence surfaced about an alternate person who committed the crime. Ultimately, Mr. Burton carried his wrongful conviction for nearly 28 years before he was exonerated.

My Story

On Dec. 16, 2020, Termaine Hicks was freed from a Pennsylvania prison after his wrongful conviction for a 2001 rape was vacated.

In 2001, Mr. Hicks was walking home when he heard a woman screaming. He found her badly beaten and attempted to call 911 when the police arrived and mistook him for the attacker. Officers shot him three times in the back before they realized their mistake. They then conspired to cover it up and falsely testified that Mr. Hicks had lunged at them with a gun. Based on this testimony, Mr. Hicks was convicted in 2002 of rape, aggravated assault, possessing an instrument of crime, and terroristic threats.

In 2015, Mr. Hicks filed a petition for post-conviction DNA testing on the evidence. Separately, in 2018, his attorneys filed a petition for post-conviction relief, stating that pathology reports and other evidence revealed that he had been shot from behind three times. Two years later, the district attorney’s conviction integrity unit asked a court to vacate Mr. Hicks’ conviction.

Mr. Hicks, an aspiring playwright, is now a member of the Innocence Project’s Exoneree Advisory Council.