Dec 28, 2011
Mondo we Langa and Ed Poindexter
Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa, the leaders of the Omaha chapter of the Black Panther Party in the early 1970s, were framed for the murder of Omaha Police Officer Larry Minard as part of J. Edgar Hoover’s clandestine, illegal...
Oct 9, 2009
South Kanasa City Blast Site
Five innocent people were convicted in February 1997 in the deaths of six Kansas City firefighters in 1988. These two stories run a total length of 20,000 words, and won the Missouri Bar Association's annual "Excellence in Legal Journalism"...
Sep 12, 2009
The case of the Scottsboro Boys often seemed like one of dueling prejudices. Entrenched racism against blacks, anti-Semitism, the Madonna/Whore dichotomy, and regional stereotypes would all be on full display as the Scottsboro Boys grabbed headlines for well over a decade...
Jun 2, 2014
Excerpt from the book The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal
by J. Patrick O'Connor
Chapter One
A Cause Celebre
Mumia Abu-Jamal has been on death row since 1982. Over the years, as a result of his prison writings, the former radio reporter who prided himself on being "the voice...
Mar 24, 2014
When Fatty Arbuckle was charged with manslaughter in the death of Virginia Rappe in 1921 he was the highest paid actor in Hollywood. The tabloid press went after him with a vengeance. Eleven years later, despite being exonerated by a jury, he died of a heart attack...
Jan 20, 2014
Updated Jan. 30, 2014
The murder of British student Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy on November 1, 2007 caused a global controversy. Not so much for the crime itself, although it was certainly a brutal murder, but because of the disputed guilt or innocence of two of the...
Oct 21, 2013
An excerpt from Pro Bono: The 18-Year Defense of Caril Ann Fugate by Jeff McArthur (Bandwagon Books). An account of how her trial lawyer – who believed in her innocence – continued to represent her for free until she was paroled in 1976. In 1959, 19-year-old Charlie...
Sep 16, 2013
Convicted Serial Killer Gerald Parker
Eyewitness misidentification plays a part in more than 70 percent of wrongful convictions. Even after the actual rapist confessed, even after DNA evidence exonerated her former husband and he was set free after more than 15 years in...
Jun 10, 2013
Jean Harris (photo NPR)
A distraught Jean Harris paid one last visit to her estranged lover, Dr. Herman Tarnower, intending to take her own life but ended up shooting him when the famed “Diet Doc” tried to wrest the handgun from her. What should have been ruled an accidental...
Apr 25, 2013
Steve Wright
The murders of five prostitutes by the Suffolk Strangler in 2006 set off one of the largest manhunts in British history. DNA evidence led to the arrest and conviction of a man who admitted he had sex with four of the five dead women, but was he the actual...
