aGameOfThrones
07-18-2011, 02:51 AM
Kenneth Kagonyera had been in the county jail for 13 months when he finally gave in.
Prosecutors and investigators interrogated him repeatedly, he says, and told him he faced at least 25 years in prison for first-degree murder, with life or a death sentence possible. So he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the 2000 slaying of Walter Rodney Bowman.
"It just kind of wore down on me," he later told the commission investigating whether the justice system wrongly imprisoned him.
In September, the two men are scheduled to have a hearing before a three-judge panel that could free them. The hearing comes after the N.C. Innocence Inquiry Commission in April found enough evidence to indicate the men are innocent. That evidence includes the confession of another man and DNA testing that points to other suspects.
•Johnny Pinchback became the 22nd person exonerated through DNA testing in Dallas County, Texas, when a judge released him on May 12. He spent 27 years in prison for the rape of two teenage girls before being cleared. The prosecutor didn't contest the finding.
•A judge in Arkansas recently ordered DNA testing for a man convicted of killing two people in 1987. The 60-year-old man has maintained his innocence during his entire time in prison.
•Four men in Chicago convicted of a 1994 rape and murder are asking to be released from prison after a DNA test points to another suspect. DNA tests at the time had excluded the men.
Prosecutors have opposed some efforts.
Twenty-eight percent of exonerations nationally have involved defendants who pleaded guilty, according to Saloom.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-07-17-dna-evidence-exonerates-innocent-prisoners-wrongful-convictions_n.htm
Prosecutors and investigators interrogated him repeatedly, he says, and told him he faced at least 25 years in prison for first-degree murder, with life or a death sentence possible. So he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the 2000 slaying of Walter Rodney Bowman.
"It just kind of wore down on me," he later told the commission investigating whether the justice system wrongly imprisoned him.
In September, the two men are scheduled to have a hearing before a three-judge panel that could free them. The hearing comes after the N.C. Innocence Inquiry Commission in April found enough evidence to indicate the men are innocent. That evidence includes the confession of another man and DNA testing that points to other suspects.
•Johnny Pinchback became the 22nd person exonerated through DNA testing in Dallas County, Texas, when a judge released him on May 12. He spent 27 years in prison for the rape of two teenage girls before being cleared. The prosecutor didn't contest the finding.
•A judge in Arkansas recently ordered DNA testing for a man convicted of killing two people in 1987. The 60-year-old man has maintained his innocence during his entire time in prison.
•Four men in Chicago convicted of a 1994 rape and murder are asking to be released from prison after a DNA test points to another suspect. DNA tests at the time had excluded the men.
Prosecutors have opposed some efforts.
Twenty-eight percent of exonerations nationally have involved defendants who pleaded guilty, according to Saloom.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-07-17-dna-evidence-exonerates-innocent-prisoners-wrongful-convictions_n.htm