Innocent!?

Stories

14 Stories

April 2008
- DNA Used to Nab Criminal Kin
  
  Washington Post | Apr 21, 08 12:51 PM CDT
  
  (Newser) - Law-enforcement agencies are using DNA of family members—often without their consent—to identify and convict criminals, the Washington Post reports. Privacy advocates object that it turns family members into unwitting informants, and subjects innocent relatives to “lifelong genetic surveillance” because someone in their family committed a crime. But investigators say it could increase DNA-solved cases by as much as 40%. More »
- Man Granted Retrial After 26 Years Behind Bars
  
  Chicago Tribune | Apr 19, 08 6:23 AM CDT
  
  (Newser) - Alton Logan tasted freedom yesterday for the first time in 26 years after being granted a new trial, reports the Chicago Tribune . The Illinois man was locked up in 1982 for killing a security guard. Another man confessed to the killings but his attorneys, prevented from coming forward by attorney-client privilege, did not reveal the confession until the man died last year. More »
- Woman Cleared Of Poisoning Marine Husband, Widow Had Been Accused Of Slipping Her Husband Arsenic To
  
  CBS | Apr 18, 08
  
  A woman once convicted of killing her Marine husband with arsenic to pay for breast implants was cleared after new tests showed no traces of poison.
- Wrongly Convicted Texas Man Freed
  
  The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English | Apr 16, 08
  
  A 49-year-old Texas man who spent nearly 23 years in prison for a rape he did not commit was been set free after a court hearing Wednesday in Dallas.A judge on Wednesday overturned the burglary and rape convictions of Thomas Clifford McGowan, who was convicted in separate trials in 1985 and 1986.He was serving a life sentence.A DNA test earlier this month showed that McGowan was not the source of the male DNA collected as part of a rape kit in May 1985.
- Amanda Knox: 'Railroad Job From Hell'?
  
  Seattle Post-Intelligencer | Apr 13, 08 2:00 PM CDT
  
  (Newser) - Amanda Knox , the 20-year-old University of Washington student who's been held by Italian police since November as a suspect in her British roommate's murder, is the victim of a “railroad job from hell,” an investigator hired by the “48 Hours Mystery” to review the case concluded. "They've put so much into Amanda Knox, they have to convict her now or they look like fools," he says on the show, broadcast last night. More »
March 2008
- Lawyers Declare Innocence of Waterboarding Victim
  
  CNN | Mar 18, 08 11:40 AM CDT
  
  (Newser) - Guantanamo detainee Abu Zubaydah isn’t a member of al Qaeda or the Taliban, his lawyers contend, and he’s never tried to harm American citizens. Held in CIA secret prisons and waterboarded, Zubaydah wasn’t given anything “that would satisfy even the most basic notions of due process,” his lawyers wrote in a deposition unsealed yesterday, arguing that the native Saudi should go free. More »
February 2008
- Police Too Quick to Call McCanns Suspects: Chief
  
  Guardian (UK) | Feb 3, 08 3:14 PM CST
  
  (Newser) - Portuguese authorities were "too hasty" to name the McCanns as formal suspects in the disappearance of their daughter Maddie last May, conceded the country's top policeman yesterday. The McCanns have interpreted Alipio Ribeiro's comments as an implicit acknowledgment of their innocence, the Guardian reports. More »
January 2008
- Scot Freed After 22 Years on Death Row in Ohio
  
  Columbus Dispatch | Jan 7, 08 5:26 PM CST
  
  (Newser) - A Scotsman who had served almost 22 years on Ohio's death row was released today, the Columbus Dispatch reports. Kenneth Richey, 43, was convicted in 1986 of causing an apartment fire that caused the death of a 2-year-old, but after a protracted appeal process, a federal court overturned his conviction last August. He then pleaded no contest to reduced charges and was sentenced to time served. More »
- Innocent Con Freed After 27 Years
  
  Associated Press | Jan 4, 08 3:00 AM CST
  
  (Newser) - A man who spent 27 years in prison for a rape he didn't commit was released yesterday after DNA evidence proved he hadn't assaulted his accuser. Charles Chatman, now 47, had maintained his innocence throughout his time in jail, refusing to give an account of the crime to the parole board on three separate occasions. More »
- Clemens Swears He's Innocent
  
  New York Post | Jan 3, 08 5:33 PM CST
  
  (Newser) - Roger Clemens says he received injections of vitamin B-12 and the painkiller lidocaine—but not steroids—from trainer Brian McNamee. In a 60 Minutes interview with Mike Wallace set to air Sunday, Clemens again denied ever taking banned substances, including human growth hormone, the New York Post reports. "Swear?" asked Wallace. "Swear," replied Clemens. More »
November 2007
- Ex-Enron Chief Not Guilty, Widow Says
  
  Houston Chronicle | Nov 30, 07 9:33 PM CST
  
  (Newser) - Ex-Enron chief Ken Lay is innocent, and the feds shouldn't drain $13 million from his estate in a civil suit—at least not according to his widow. Linda Lay's filing today denies "any criminal activity on the part of Kenneth L. Lay, including his alleged participation in securities fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy or money laundering," the Houston Chronicle reports. More »
July 2007
- 'I'm Innocent' Lohan Says
  
  Associated Press | Jul 25, 07 5:28 PM CDT
  
  (Newser) - Troubled starlet Lindsay Lohan has proclaimed her innocence after being arrested yesterday for DUI and cocaine possession. In an email to Access Hollywood the 21-year-old said the drugs "were not mine," and that she was "almost hit" in a parking lot car chase with the mother of her former assistant. More »
- Georgia Execution Halted
  
  Atlanta Journal-Constitution | Jul 17, 07 5:46 AM CDT
  
  (Newser) - The execution of a convicted cop-killer was stayed in the final hours yesterday after seven of nine witnesses recanted their testimony and others admitted they lied to police. Troy Anthony Davis was scheduled to die today by lethal injection; the Georgia Parole Board granted him 90 days to prove his innocence, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. More »
April 2007
- Duke Players Cleared
  
  News & Observer (Raleigh) | Apr 11, 07 11:09 PM CDT
  
  (Newser) - Three Duke lacrosse players charged with raping and kidnapping a stripper 13 months ago were finally exonerated today when all the remaining charges against them were dropped. Roy Cooper, North Carolina's attorney general, accused Mike Nifong, the district attorney who brought the charges—and then withheld DNA evidence of the students' innocence—of overreaching. More »