2016 Innocents Database Exoneration Report

The 2016 Innocents Database Exoneration Report is the second yearly report of information recorded in the Innocents Database. The Innocents Database is an ongoing independent non-profit project begun in February 1997 that records every documentable exoneration in the United States and every other country. The Innocents Database includes more than eight thousand wrongful conviction cases. The database is online at www.justicedenied.org/exonerations.htm. This report is based on the almost 1,000 known exonerations in the United States and other countries in 2016. The report has dozens of tables and charts detailing a wealth of information that includes the number of exonerations by country, and U.S. states and counties; and information about exonerees such as their sex, race/ethnicity, years imprisoned, convicted crime, and the type of evidence that resulted in their exoneration. Also included are the number of people exonerated by DNA evidence, by the granting of a federal habeas petition, and the assistance of a conviction review unit.

Hans Sherrer is president of the Justice Institute, and editor and publisher of Justice: Denied -- the magazine for the wrongly convicted. He has written more than a thousand published articles related to wrongful convictions, including law review and legal journal articles. He created and maintains The Innocents Database that includes information about the cases of more than 8,000 wrongly convicted persons