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North Carolina innocence commission releases first inmate

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] The North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission on Wednesday overturned a man's 1993 murder conviction in its first exoneration of an inmate who claimed to have been wrongly convicted. George Taylor, who had served 17 years of a life sentence and had exhausted all other appeals options, became the first person to be exonerated under the commission since the commission's creation in 2006. To receive commission review, inmates with new evidence not previously considered in court can bring their innocence claims to an eight-member panel, consisting of judges, attorneys, a sheriff, a victim's advocate, and a member of the public. If five or more commission members consider the evidence to be a potential consideration for innocence, the case will then go to a panel of three North Carolina Superior Court judges, who must deliver a unanimous decision to overturn a conviction. The appointed commission judges found that faulty evidence and unreliable witnesses were used to wrongfully convict Taylor at trial. The commission, the first and only program of its kind in the US, was signed into law in August 2006 and has received more than 600 claims of innocence. Its creation was prompted based on wrongful convictions in several high-profile cases in North Carolina, including Darryl Hunt, who was found innocent of murder based on DNA evidence after serving 18 years in jail, and Alan Gell, who was released from death row based on evidence that prosecutors purposefully withheld in his trial. The commission is modeled after the UK's Criminal Cases Review Commission.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on February 18, 2010 (boomark / email).