California Innocence Project Podcast

Rodney Gupton was convicted of shooting at a car based on the eye witness testimony of a 17 year old girl. Years later, the 17 year old witness, now a social worker in her mid thirties, came forward and admitted that she lied based on pressure from her high school boyfriend.

A tragic house fire where three children died, coupled with bad arson science led to the wrongful conviction of their mother. She has spent more than a quarter-century in prison for a crime she did not commit.

Horace Roberts was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1999. New DNA testing suggests the true perpetrator is still at large. Horace remains incarcerated.

On paper, California's compensation law is great. Practically speaking, however, each one of these cases is a battle, and very few exonerees get compensated.

Brian Banks was one of the best high school football plays in the country when he was falsely accused of rape by one of his classmates. Years later, after Brian had already served six years in prison for a crime he did not commit, his accuser came forward and admitted that she lied.

The governor of every state has the power to grant clemency and free any inmate within the state prison system. In 2013, 3 lawyers from the California Innocence Project walked 712 miles (from San Diego to Sacramento) to deliver clemency petitions on behalf of 12 of their innocent clients to Governor Jerry Brown.

Alex Simpson is the Associate Director of the California Innocence Project. In this episode, he discusses the legislative successes that they have achieved, as well as the areas that still need improvement.

Each year, the California Innocence Project receives thousands of requests for assistance, and we rely on interns to go through these cases and look for the needles in the haystack.

When a witness walks into a courtroom and points at a defendant and says, "I'm 100% sure that that's the person who committed the crime," that's very powerful evidence. We now know that bad identifications is one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions in America. Guy Miles was convicted of a bank robbery in Orange County, even though he was in Las Vegas at the time.

Perhaps the only thing more difficult than being wrongfully convicted is having a child that was wrongfully convicted in prison, and feeling helpless to get them out.