Feb 05 2016
What A Record-High Number of Exonerations Says About the US Justice System
GUEST: Samuel R. Gross, the Thomas and Mabel Long Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. He is also the editor of the university’s National Registry of Exonerations.
Nearly 150 people were exonerated for crimes they were convicted of throughout the United States last year. That number is a record high, as per the National Registry of Exonerations. Even more shocking, the average sentence that those exonerees served before being freed, was 14 and a half years.
Imagine being locked up for nearly a decade and a half of your life for a crime you did not commit. Most of us cannot imagine that. Most of us don’t realize that the US justice system is imprisoning people wrongfully in such high numbers.
In fact, the rate of exonerations per year is actually going up!
Download the latest Registry of Exonerations for 2015 here: http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Exonerations_in_2015.pdf.
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