A letter from a stranger in Philadelphia kicked off a series of events that freed Leon Benson.
Read More
A man with a mental disability who has for years claimed he was wrongfully convicted of an Elkhart murder and who spent more than 15 years behind bars can proceed to a new trial after the Indiana Court of Appeals upheld a post-conviction relief order vacating his murder conviction.
Read More
The Exoneration Justice Clinic at Notre Dame Law School has been up and running for three years and has grown to the point of opening its doors to students from outside the Hoosier State — and even outside the country.
Bob Hammerle and his son Chris used to go into the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office on Saturday mornings with a sack of doughnuts and a chunky TV. Bob, then a brand-new lawyer, worked on files while Chris watched cartoons.
Walking out into the cold Minnesota winter air after nearly 25 years in prison wasn’t something Thomas Rhodes thought would happen. But thanks in part to a recent Notre Dame Law School grad, that’s just what Rhodes did.
The Exoneration Justice Clinic at Notre Dame Law School, which traces its founding to a group of students and dozens of white roses, has been awarded a $300,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice that will bolster the clinic’s ability to investigate and litigate wrongful convictions.
A criminal case has been dismissed against an Elkhart man with a mental disability who was convicted of a 2002 murder but who won his release from prison last year.
The Marion County Prosecutor’s Office is officially accepting conviction review petitions as part of its new Conviction Integrity Unit.
It’s been more than 15 years since Andrew Royer was convicted of an Elkhart County murder and more than nine months after he was freed due to concerns over his confession and other evidence, but his case is not over yet. Instead, it’s back at the Indiana Court of Appeals, where the state is asking for the reversal of an order giving Royer a new trial.
Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears announced this month that his office will establish the Conviction Integrity Unit in early 2021 to prevent, identify and correct wrongful convictions. The new unit will consist of one attorney, an investigator and a paralegal and be the first of its kind in Indiana, according to the National Registry of Exonerations.
For the last few years, students at the Notre Dame Law School have been working in conjunction with a Chicago organization designed to seek justice for wrongfully convicted individuals. Now, the law school has graduated to a new level of independence in its wrongful-conviction work, opening the Exoneration Justice Project this semester.
A woman who spent 17 years in prison for a fire that killed her 3-year-old son will be compensated by Indiana for a wrongful conviction. Kristine Bunch was declared eligible Thursday by the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute’s Board of Trustees.
An Indiana program aimed at compensating those who have been wrongly convicted of crimes hasn’t yet paid out any money since it was created last year.
A northern Indiana man who has maintained for more than a decade that law enforcement officials in Elkhart exploited his mental disability to coerce him into a false murder confession has been released from prison and granted a new trial.
A northern Indiana city is weighing spending another $500,000 to defend itself against a lawsuit filed by a man whose attempted murder conviction was thrown out because prosecutors didn’t disclose that the state’s sole eyewitness underwent hypnosis to sharpen his memory.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal for a former Oklahoma City police officer convicted of sexually assaulting black women he encountered while patrolling the city’s low-income neighborhoods.
An Indiana man who spent nearly 25 years in prison for a 1992 rape until DNA evidence helped free him alleges in a federal lawsuit that he was wrongfully convicted by authorities who fabricated evidence against him and took advantage of his severe mental health issues.
A mentally disabled man serving a 55-year prison sentence for an Elkhart murder 17 years ago that he maintains he did not commit is reviving his efforts for post-conviction relief, presenting new evidence in a petition he claims exonerates him.
Several new state laws take effect Monday, from a required high school state government test to allowing wrongfully incarcerated individuals to collect $50,000 a year.
The following enrolled acts, followed in parentheses by their corresponding public law numbers, take effect July 1 unless otherwise noted below.
Although the $34 billion budget dominated the session, legislators introduced and considered more than 600 bills each in both the Senate and the House. The ones they passed covered a variety of matters, including hate crimes, hemp, gambling, foster parents, electricity generation and, of course, electric scooters.
The science of DNA testing is evolving, and that’s a good thing for wrongful conviction reform advocates like Fran Watson. She talked about the changes Friday before a session of the Indiana State Bar Association Solo/Small Firm Conference in French Lick.