Innocence Blog

California man shares story of his wrongful conviction

Posted: August 24, 2007 1:02 pm

In 2004, a California judge threw out Harold Hall’s double murder conviction because new evidence showed that he was innocent. Now, he spends his time telling his story around the state to help prevent wrongful convictions. This week he told an audience in Los Angeles why he falsely confessed to a crime he didn’t commit.

"They questioned me for 18 hours straight without food or water," said Hall, 40, who grew up in South Los Angeles and said the detectives also shackled him to a chair. "It was a strain on an 18-year-old kid. I finally just told them what they wanted to hear."After confessing to two murders, Hall spent the next 19 years in prison. He was finally released in 2004 and celebrated his third anniversary as a free man on Aug. 17. “The judge reversed my case based on false evidence,” said Hall, who has since become an advocate for the falsely imprisoned.

Read the full story here. (Our Weekly, 08/24/2007)

Hall is not included in the 206 DNA exonerations tracked by the Innocence Project because DNA evidence wasn’t involved in his release. About 25 percent of the 206 DNA exonerees also falsely confessed, and since DNA evidence is only available in less than 10 percent of cases, there are many false confession cases that will never be overturned by the irrefutable evidence of DNA.

Read more about false confessions in our Understand the Causes section.

Tags: False Confessions