The week in review

A wealth of news appeared this week on wrongful convictions and criminal justice reforms. With Dean Cage’s exoneration on Wednesday, we didn’t get it all on the Innocence Blog. Here are a few of the stories we found intriguing and enlightening this week:

An executed Australian man was

posthumously pardoned

due to evidence of his innocence, the case entered the public eye as the result of “

Gun Alley

,” Kevin Morgan’s book about the case.

The Mississippi Innocence Project is

reviewing about 80 convictions

with signs of forensic fraud, and will seek to overturn any of them in which a defendant was wrongfully convicted. Between 60 and 70 of these cases involve notorious medical examiner Steven Hayne.

Meanwhile, the Dallas District Attorney’s Office has

approved DNA testing in three cases

where defendants have claimed innocence and applied for testing but were denied by the previous district attorney.

The New York Times reviewed the “distinctly American” practice of

electing our judges

and the effect it has on the justice system. And a Buffalo detective involved in the cold case investigations that led to two overturned wrongful convictions in recent months announced that he is

running for State Senate

.

Another wrongful conviction was avoided in Vacaville, California, when carjacking

charges were dropped against an innocent man

, but the cost of a wrongful arrest based on eyewitness misidentification can be severe.