Our conversation on “Making a Murderer: False Confessions, Wrongful Convictions” was such an enlightening discussion between DPF President Mike Farrell and Dr. Richard Leo, Professor of Law and Social Psychology at the University of San Francisco School of Law.
Quick Facts
- Since 1989 there have been at least 3,431 exonerations. Fully 13% of these – 434 cases – contained false confessions or admissions. That percentage soars to 23% in homicide cases. [source: National Registry of Exonerations (NRE)]
- Since 1973 more than 195 people have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. That’s roughly four wrongly convicted death-row prisoners exonerated each year since 1973.
- Sixty-nine percent involved official misconduct by police, prosecutors, or other government officials, per the DPIC.
- In 2023, for the fifth year in a row, Chicago led the U.S. in wrongful convictions, the NRE reported. In 2022, there were 126 exonerations in Illinois, followed by Michigan, which had 16.
- Innocent Black people are 7.5 times more likely to be wrongly convicted of murder than white people. [source: NRE]
