Wrongful Conviction

In this special edition of Wrongful Conviction , Jason Flom is joined by author John Grisham to discuss his work with the Innocence Project, his commitment to criminal justice reform, and his Netflix series, The Innocent Man , the documentary adaptation of his only nonfiction book about two murders in Ada, OK. For ten years, John Grisham practiced law in a small town in Mississippi. He also served...

Jens Soering is serving two consecutive life terms for a case of double homicide, the murders of Derek and Nancy Haysom in 1985–a crime he did not commit. On June 8, 1986, Jens Soering, the son of a former German diplomat, falsely confessed to killing the Haysoms. Jens "took the rap" for his girlfriend, Elizabeth Haysom, to save her from the death penalty for killing her parents. At Jens&rsq...

This episode originally aired on November 7, 2016. Marty Tankleff had just turned 17 when he was arrested for murdering his parents, Seymour and Arlene Tankleff in September 1988. Based on an unsigned “confession" extracted from him following many long hours of interrogation by notorious Suffolk County detective K. James McCready, Marty was convicted and sentenced to 50 years to life in pris...

In 1990, Jeffrey Deskovic was wrongfully convicted of the brutal rape and murder of his 15-year-old classmate, Angela Correa. Jeff was only 16 at the time of the crime with no prior record. Police claimed that Jeff was overly upset at the victim’s funeral and were certain they had their man. They interrogated him for over seven and a half hours, without his mother or legal counsel present. A...

On June 19th, 1995, Dusty Turner was out at a bar with some friends in Virginia Beach, VA, including his roommate and training partner, Billy Brown. Dusty Turner and Jennifer Evans were sitting in his car waiting for Evans’s friends to join them when an extremely intoxicated Billy Brown forced his way into the back seat and began insulting Evans and pulling her hair. When she tried to defend...

In 1976, Sonia “Sunny” Jacobs was sentenced to death for the murders of Florida Highway Patrol officer Phillip Black and Donald Irwin, a visiting Canadian constable. The officers were killed during a traffic stop where Sunny was traveling with her boyfriend, Jesse Tafero, and her two children, Eric, nine, and Christina, 10 months, in a car driven by Walter Rhodes. After officers approa...

Curtis Haith was beaten to death and shot outside of his home in western Pennsylvania. Police determined that the evening before Haith had attended a party in Uniontown, PA. Crystal Weimer, whose sisters hosted the party, and her cousin had driven Haith home and returned directly to the party. Crystal became the focus of the investigation after an ex-boyfriend told authorities she confessed. The c...

Tim Tyler was sentenced to a mandatory life sentence in federal prison for selling LSD while traveling around the country following the Grateful Dead. He was 25 years old when he was sentenced and spent nearly half of his life behind bars. In 1991, Tim was arrested twice for selling LSD and received probation both times. Then, in May 1992, Tim sold marijuana and LSD to a confidential informant. He...

Following in the footsteps of his beloved and iconic grandfather, Ndaba Mandela has taken the torch of social justice and run with it. Today, Nelson Mandela’s legacy continues as Ndaba keeps its beacon of hope bright, fueling his message that one person can make a difference. In this candid interview, Ndaba discusses his passion for criminal justice reform and his commitment to a new generat...

In her new book Rectify: The Power of Restorative Justice After Wrongful Conviction , Lara Bazelon makes a powerful argument for adopting a model of restorative justice as part of the innocence movement so exonerees, crime victims, and their communities can come together to heal. Tony Wright is one of those exonerees. Tony endured two trials and 25 years in prison before a jury found him not guilt...

In forty-eight other states and in federal courts across the country, a conviction requires a unanimous vote – all jurors must agree on whether a prosecutor has met the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Louisiana is the only state where someone can be sentenced to life without parole without a unanimous decision of a jury. Non-unanimous juries allow conviction even where two...

In this special edition of Wrongful Conviction , Jason Flom is joined by Sadhguru to discuss his revolutionary work that has helped reform prisons throughout India. Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic, visionary and bestselling author who ranked amongst the 50 most influential people in India by India Today . He has been conferred the Padma Vibhushan by the Government of India in 2017, the highest civilian...

On July 5, 2000, Ricardo Aguilera was shot and wounded in a gang related drive-by shooting in Los Angeles, California. Several witnesses identified 25-year-old Rafael Madrigal Jr. in a photo lineup as either the shooter or driver of the car involved.  Those witnesses testified against Rafael at trial. Rafael, who maintained his innocence throughout the ordeal, had been at work at Proactive Pa...

As a teenager, Damien Echols along with Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley—known as the West Memphis Three—was convicted in 1994 of killing three 8-year-old boys in West Memphis, AK. There was no DNA linking the WM3 to the crime, and some of the DNA found at the crime scene even seemed to implicate the stepfather of one of the victims. The case gained national attention soon after the...

Noura Jackson was egregiously framed and wrongfully convicted of murdering her mother, Jennifer Jackson, in Memphis, TN in 2005. Amazingly, she spent over three years in jail awaiting trial before being sentenced to 20 years and nine months in prison. No physical evidence linked Noura to the murder, and DNA testing not only excluded her as a suspect, but it also suggested that two or three differe...

It’s been over 10 years since the murder of Meredith Kercher, British exchange student killed while studying abroad in Italy. That crime sent an innocent American student named Amanda Knox to prison for four years. At just 20 years old Amanda Knox became embroiled in an international scandal that captivated the world. The guilty verdict at Amanda’s initial trial and her 26-year sentenc...

Susan King served nearly seven years behind bars for a crime she didn’t commit. In November 1998, a fisherman found the body of 40-year-old Kyle Breeden in the Kentucky River. He had been shot in the head twice with .22 caliber magnum bullets and his legs were bound with guitar amplifier cord. The crime went unsolved for eight years until May 2006, when Kentucky State Police began re-investi...

Kim Kardashian West first heard about Alice Marie Johnson through a short video about Johnson’s life behind bars on Twitter. Alice Marie Johnson, a 63-year-old-great-grandmother, was given a life sentence for a first time-nonviolent-drug-related crime and was not eligible for parole. At the time, Johnson had already been in prison for 21 years. Kardashian West retweeted that video from Mic.c...

It’s been almost 30 years since the brutal rape and beating of the Central Park Jogger that sent five innocent men to prison—they were known as the Central Park Five. This case and their stories captivated New Yorkers. This season we heard from one of the five: the incredible Yusef Salaam. But the first guest on Wrongful Conviction was Raymond Santana, and as the sixth season of Wrongf...

In 1999, Luis Vargas was convicted and sentenced to fifty-five years to life in prison for three sexual assaults. He was accused of being the notorious “teardrop rapist,” a methodical serial rapist that terrorized women in Los Angeles. The real “teardrop rapist” would attack over 30 victims. Luis Vargas is joined by his lawyer, Justin Brooks, director of the California Inno...

Since his release in April 2018, Philadelphia rapper Meek Mill is using his voice and freedom to fight on behalf of those still behind bars. In this special interview, Meek Mill is joined by his friend and ally Michael Rubin, e-commerce billionaire and co-owner of the Philadelphia 76ers, to discuss their hopes for criminal justice reform. https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/with-jason-flom W...

On December 27, 1996, 35-year-old Tyrone Camp was fatally shot in the head and back as he was warming up his truck at Active Transportation Co. in Louisville, KY. The murder was witnessed by Kenneth Brown, who told police he had seen the assailant running away, but that he could not identify him. The focus shifted to Kerry Porter, who had also once been married to Camp’s wife, after the vict...

Calvin Johnson was 25 years old when he was wrongfully convicted for the rape of a woman in 1983, and he served 16 years for that crime. In 1999, a judge ordered a new trial for Calvin and DNA tests were done on samples collected from the rape kit. The DNA testing concluded that Calvin was not the perpetrator, and the District Attorney decided to drop the charges against him. Calvin Johnson was th...

On January 11, 1988, Fitzgerald Clarke and Steven Hewitt were fatally shot in Brooklyn, NY outside of a building where they sold drugs. Shabaka Shakur, a friend of both victims, was brought in for questioning after a witness told officers that Shabaka harbored a dispute over money he owned Hewitt. Another witness told police that Shabaka admitted to committing the crime before he was arrested, but...

On June 29, 1998, three men committed an armed robbery at a Fidelity Financial institution in Fullerton, CA. Two bank employees chose Guy Miles from faulty photo arrays and later testified that he was one of the robbers in court. Guy had six alibi witnesses at trial who all testified that he was in Las Vegas–an almost four-hour drive away–when the robbery occurred. He was convicted of...