In 1982, Waters was convicted of a rape and robbery based in part on an eyewitness identification. On November 20, 2003, after DNA tests had proved he was not the perpetrator of the attack, the state dismissed all charges against Waters. In 2005, another man was charged with the rape based on the same DNA evidence.

The conviction stemmed from a rape and robbery of a woman in March 1981 in Jacksonville, North Carolina. A lone perpetrator had come to her house claiming interest in a waterbed for sale. He threatened her with a gun, taped her hands behind her back and put tape over her eyes. He then raped her and fled the scene, stealing jewelry as he went.

The victim gave police a description and viewed a number of photo lineups. In April, she was hypnotized, in an apparent attempt to jog her memory of the crime. In August of the same year, she was shown a photograph of Waters, who she identified as the perpetrator. At Waters' trial a lab analyst testified that sperm cells had been identified on swabs from the victim's body, and that the sperm came from a person with a blood type matching that of Waters -- and 35 percent of white men. Waters was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

Waters applied for post-conviction DNA testing on his own, but it was not until attorney Mark Raynor took on the Waters case in February 2002 that testing was secured. In 2003, Waters was excluded as a potential contributor of the sperm cells from the rape kit. His conviction was tossed and he was freed. In October 2003, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation Laboratory also conducted DNA testing and again confirmed that Waters could not have been the rapist. On November 20, 2003, all charges against him were dropped, making his exoneration official.

In August 2005, North Carolina Gov. Michael Easley granted Waters a full pardon. In 2007, North Carolina lawmakers passed a package of bills that reformed the state's criminal justice system based on the lessons learned from wrongful convictions - particularly those based on eyewitness misidentification.

Other exoneration anniversaries this week:

Billy Wardell, Illinois (Served 9.5 Years, Exonerated 11/16/97)

Donald Reynolds, Illinois (Served 9.5 Years, Exonerated 11/16/97)

Donald Wayne Good, Texas (Served 13.5 Years, Exonerated 11/17/04)

Ben Salazar, Texas (Served 5 Years, Exonerated 11/20/97)

Texas' highest criminal court yesterday rejected the appeal of a Max Soffar, a mentally ill prisoner on the state's death row for a crime he has long said he didn't commit.

Soffar was convicted of a 1980 murder based in part on a confession that he later said was false. His attorneys, at the American Civil Liberties Union and the Texas Innocence Network, say he has been denied the chance to present evidence demonstrating that his confession was false.

"This case represents a textbook example of a miscarriage of justice," said David Dow of TIN. "From a false confession to two unfair trials and death sentences, the problems with Max Soffar's case show the grave failures of the criminal justice system. With the court's ruling today, Texas comes closer to executing another innocent man."

Read more about Soffar's case here.

The Innocence Project is not involved in Soffar's case, but our work has demonstrated that false confessions are indeed a common cause of wrongful conviction. More than 25 percent of the wrongful convictions overturned through DNA testing involved false confessions. False confessions played a role in the cases of 12 of the 17 people exonerated through DNA after time on death row.

This conversation has continued across the country, and especially in the 35 states with the death penalty. A column in Florida Today argues that exonerations prove that the death penalty is unreliable and that the possibility of executing an innocent person is very real.

John Bradley, who was appointed by Gov. Rick Perry as the panel's new chairman two days before the group was set to hear from an arson expert in the case, told Senators last week that the commission's review of the Cameron Todd Willingham arson case might stretch into 2011 or beyond. In his testimony, he questioned the motives of the Innocence Project and others in focusing on faulty forensics in the state.

At a press conference after the hearing, Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck said the Innocence Project wants to ensure that faulty forensics aren't contributing to injustice in the state. "We brought this allegation for one reason," Scheck said. "We are concerned that there may be innocent people in prison in Texas based on unreliable science."

An editorial in the Houston Chronicle questions whether Perry and Bradley are stalling the commission's work for political reasons and attacking the Innocence Project and individuals involved in the process to divert attention from the task at hand:

It doesn't take a crack CSI sleuth like the characters played by Laurence Fishburne and Marg Helgenberger to smell some foul politics emanating from the governor's office and the new leadership at the Texas Forensic Science Commission. By attacking the very people and groups that have devoted their efforts to spotlighting wrongful convictions and freeing the innocent, Chairman Bradley has certainly not allayed suspicions that his first priority in his new post is protecting the man who appointed him rather than those unjustly convicted of crimes.

Read the full editorial here. (Houston Chronicle, 11/17/09)

Read more about the Cameron Todd Willingham in our Resource Center.

"Felons go undetected and undeterred because reliable forensic capabilities are either scarce or unavailable to the criminal justice system," Lykos said.

And this problem doesn't only affect Houston. A report published by CBS News last week found thousands of rape kits untested in jurisdictions across the country. Fourteen percent of open murder cases and 18 percent of open rape cases have forensic evidence that has not been sent to crime labs for testing, according to a report prepared for the U.S. Office of Justice Programs.

Proposed improvements to the 2004 law would increase the number of lab technicians across the country and require labs to report their backlogs to the federal government. A New York Times editorial last week urged Congress to strengthen the law, calling untested evidence "a huge insult to rape victims."

Johnson served 25 years in Louisiana's Angola State Penitentiary for a rape he didn't commit before DNA testing obtained by the Innocence Project set him free. This year on Father's Day, La'Keisha wrote to Innocence Project email subscribers about her dad:

My father is my hero and an inspiration to so many people he met over the years. Not only did he survive a quarter-century in prison, he did it with a positive outlook on life. When he would tell me years ago that he was sure he'd be free someday, I would admire his optimism but take it with a grain of my own realism, knowing the odds were against him. Now I know that the truth can overcome the odds any time. Whenever I feel down about anything, I think about my dad's strength and his triumph.

Listen online here Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. EST.

Read more about Johnson's case here.

He would later reflect on the feeling of being wrongfully accused: "It was not so much the fear of imprisonment. It wasn't so much the fear of what was going to happen. Everything that I had lived for, everything that I had done had been boiled down to - we think you're a rapist with no evidence whatsoever other than your skin and someone saying you did this."

After serving ten years of his sentence, he was paroled and began raising funds to obtain DNA testing on the evidence used in his trial. He worked a variety of temporary jobs to raise the funds for DNA testing. Although he was a college graduate and a former Army officer, his status as a registered sex offender excluded him from higher paying jobs. Robinson hired an attorney, Randy Schaffer, and obtained access to DNA testing on evidence in his case. The results proved what he had known all along - another man had committed the crime.

On November 14, 2000, Governor George W. Bush pardoned Robinson. Since his exoneration, Robinson has spoken actively about the issue of wrongful conviction to lawmakers and the media and played a key role in the passage of a law in Texas compensating the wrongfully convicted after their release.

After Robinson was cleared, Texas State Senator Rodney Ellis and other Houston attorneys helped raise funds for him to attend law school. He graduated from the Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University in 2004, and currently works in international law. He is also a member of the Innocence Project of Texas Board of Directors and the Texas Exoneree Council.

Other exoneration anniversaries this week:

Bruce Dallas Goodman, Utah (Served 19 Years, Exonerated 11/9/04)

Joseph White, Nebraska (Served 19 Years, Exonerated 11/10/08)

David Brian Sutherlin, Minnesota (Exonerated 11/13/02)

Paula Gray, Illinois (Served 9 years, Exonerated 2002)

A column by Rick Casey in the Chronicle questioned whether Bradley, a prosecutor, is the right person to lead an inquiry into scientific practices.

In an editorial yesterday, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram criticized Gov. Rick Perry for refusing to hand over the clemency report in Willingham's case in response to a Houston Chronicle request. The Chronicle is suing the state for access to the document.

In other news, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled this week that Greg Wilhoit, who spent four years on Oklahoma's death row before he was acquitted on retrial, has a viable legal claim against the state for his wrongful conviction.

An op-ed in the San Jose Mercury News by Kathleen Ridolfi and Maurice Possley of the Northern California Innocence Project points to prosecutorial misconduct's high cost to taxpayers.

Brian Dugan was sentenced to death in Illinois this week for the murder of a 10-year-old girl in 1983 - a crime for which two innocent men -- Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez - spent 12 years each on death row. Read more and watch a video interview with Cruz.

Lawyers in Wisconsin are seeking a new trial for Reynold Moore, who was convicted in 1995 with five other men for allegedly committing a 1992 murder. A new book about the case - "The Monfils Conspiracy" is available here.

Death row exoneree Kirk Bloodsworth spoke this week at the University of Sioux Falls in South Dakota.

North Carolina exoneree Ronald Cotton and crime victim Jennifer Thompson-Cannino will speak November 18 at Vanderbilt University.

A new searchable Supreme Court database offers information and analysis on the court's rulings since 1953.

"This court wishes to express its profound regret over the past 18 years. I hope for you a better future," New York Supreme Court Justice John Cataldo said in dismissing the case against Bermudez.

Bermudez was convicted in 1992 of shooting teenager outside a New York City nightclub in 1991. He was convicted based in part on questionable eyewitness testimony. The Innocence Project, in partnership with the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell, submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in Bermudez's appeal, arguing that the eyewitness identification procedures used in the case were suggestive and could have contributed to a misidentification. The eyewitnesses recanted after Bermudez was convicted.

Bermudez remains in prison because he has an unrelated drug conviction, but his attorneys are seeking to have the case resentenced as time served.

"This is too long, but justice is ours today," his tearful wife, Crystal, said outside court. "He's a good man. He didn't deserve to have this happen to him."

Read more. (Associated Press, 11/12/09)

"The commission has to be very careful about the process that it develops so that we keep the focus ... on forensic science and not on the criminal case," Bradley said.

"We want to find out if anybody else is in prison based on junk science," he said. "It's that simple."

Read more. (Dallas Morning News, 11/10/09)

(You will need Real Player to watch the events above online. Download it for free here).

Learn more about the Willingham case and the Texas Forensic Science Commission.

Two staffers at the Innocence Project New Orleans present the case for recording police interrogations in an op-ed today in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. "Videotaping interrogations benefits everybody in a case," they write.

The Los Angeles Police Department has come under fire in recent months for a backlog of untested evidence in sexual assault cases. A new audit released finds that the department has reduced the backlog by 64 percent.

The State Bar of Wisconsin reported on the 10th anniversary of the Wisconsin Innocence Project and gave an update on Chris Ochoa, exonerated in 2002, who now works as a defense attorney.

Attorneys at the Wisconsin project also filed a motion this week arguing that a Michigan man has spent 12 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit.

Wrongful convictions continue to pop up in pop culture. An eyewitness identification and a faulty lineup were featured in an episode of the CBS drama "The Good Wife" this week.

A northern California PBS station this week premiered the documentary film "$100 a Day," about exoneree compensation in California.

Attendees can expect an a capella performance featuring beatboxer Kenny Muhammad, the premiere of a new

"Indelible" trailer and a screening of "Lifted," a film by "Indelible" director Randall Dottin.

Tickets are $75 and $100, and a portion of proceeds will support the Innocence Project. Purchase tickets here.

Watch a trailer of "Indelible."

In November, 1989, a 15-year-old girl in Deskovic's high school class went out after school to take pictures for a photography class. She never returned home. When her body was discovered days later, she appeared to have been raped, beaten, and strangled. Her clothes and cassette player were collected.

Deskovic, then 16 years old, became a suspect because he was late to school the day after the victim disappeared. Police also believed he seemed overly distraught at the victim's death.

After six hours of intense questioning and three polygraph tests, Deskovic allegedly confessed to committing the crime. According to trial testimony, one officer had been brought to the interrogation specifically to "get the confession." Deskovic was held in a small room with no lawyer or parent present. He was provided with coffee throughout the day but no food. In between polygraph sessions, detectives interrogated Deskovic.

The first DNA exoneration in the country had occurred in 1989 and DNA testing had just begun to play a role in criminal cases in the U.S. Tests were conducted before Deskovic's trial on semen recovered from the victim's body during her autopsy. The results showed that he was not the source of semen collected from the victim's body. Prosecutors improperly explained that the semen may have come from a consensual sex partner, rather than her murderer - even though they never investigated whether she had a consensual sex partner. The trial went forward on the strength of Deskovic's alleged confession.

In January 2006, the Innocence Project took Deskovic's case. Because the DNA tests that excluded Deskovic before trial were conducted using older technology, the results couldn't be entered in the New York State DNA databank of convicted felons. The Innocence Project sought to retest the evidence using technology that would allow the DNA profile to be compared against the database, and Westchester Country District Attorney Janet DiFiore agreed to the testing.

In September 2006, the DNA profile showed that the semen came from a man named Steven Cunningham, who was in prison for another murder conviction. Deskovic was freed on September 22, and on November 2, he was fully cleared. Cunningham has since confessed to the crime.

In 2007, the New York Times profiled Deskovic, who spoke about the difficulties of building a new life after exoneration. Today, he speaks frequently about criminal justice reforms and writes a column for the Westchester Guardian newspaper. Read his columns and contact him through his website.

Other Exoneration Anniversaries This Week:

Rolando Cruz, Illinois (Served 10.5 Years, Exonerated 11/03/95)

David A. Gray, Illinois, (Served 20 years, Exonerated 11/06/99)

Bernard Webster, Maryland, (Served 20 years, Exonerated 11/07/02)

Critics (of scent lineups) say that the possibilities of cross-contamination of scent are great, and that the procedures are rarely well controlled. Nonetheless, although some courts have rejected evidence from them, the technique has been used in many states, including Alaska, Florida, New York and Texas, said Lawrence J. Myers, an associate professor of animal behavior at the Auburn University College of Veterinary Medicine.

Read the full story here. (New York Times, 11/4/09)

"So the law is the more deeply you're involved in the wrong, the more likely you are to be immune? That's a strange proposition," Justice Anthony Kennedy said.

The vast majority of prosecutors perform honorably and understand that they are duty-bound not just to secure convictions but to seek justice. Those who don't often suffer no consequences at the hands of state or bar organizations, as a brief in support of Mr. McGhee and Mr. Harrington convincingly argues. For these few renegades, perhaps the prospect of being held liable will help to keep them in line or, at least, hold them accountable.

"I'm just so grateful," Provience said. "It's been so long and today is the day. Thank you. Thank you."

..."It's already the Christmas holidays," said Vonzella Battle, Provience's mother, as she wept.

Prosecutors did not say whether they would retry Provience for the case. Another hearing is set for November 24.

Read the full story here. (Detroit Free Press, 11/3/09)

The Michigan Innocence Clinic at the University of Michigan Law School is a member of the Innocence Network.

Roger Dale Chapman, who was in jail on a drug charge when Dillon was arrested, said at the hearing that Brevard County law enforcement officers offered to set him free in exchange for his coached testimony against Dillon. Two officers sat with him during a recorded interview and wrote answers in a notebook for him to read on tape, he said. Chapman apologized to Dillon today for his role in the injustice, and Dillon forgave him, saying: "I know you were used. I know they pressured you."

Another Brevard County exoneree, Innocence Project client Wilton Dedge, was convicted based in part on the testimony of a notorious jailhouse snitch, who testified that Dedge confessed to him while the two men were in jail. Informant or snitch testimony has played a role in at least 15% of the 245 wrongful convictions overturned through DNA testing to date.

Dillon is seeking $1.35 million in compensation for the 27 years he spent in prison.

Read the full story here. (Florida Today, 11/2/09)

Read more about Dillon's case.

Read more about Dedge's case.

Visit the Innocence Project of Florida website.

Another article in the Houston Chronicle today by Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck and Texas State Senator Rodney Ellis urges the Texas Forensic Science Commission to continue its work of investigating allegations of forensic negligence of misconduct.

Eugenia Willingham writes that there are many unanswered questions in her stepson's case, and that only rational, independent review can address them. She writes:

My family has lost three beautiful little children and their loving father. We want answers. We want to know how the justice system got so badly off-track in Todd's case, and we want to know how many other families have been devastated by erroneous evidence in arson cases in Texas.

Attacking my son won't change the troubling lack of evidence in his case, and it won't answer questions that refuse to go away.

Read Eugenia Willingham's op-ed. (Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 10/30/09)

Meanwhile, Barry Scheck and State Senator Rodney Ellis (who also serves as the Innocence Project Board Chairman) write that it's important for the Texas Forensic Science Commission (TFSC) to stick to its mission of investigating forensic issues -- not just in Willingham's case, but in many others as well. At a hearing on Nov. 10, the new chairman of the TFSC will update the Texas Senate Criminal Justice Committee on his plans for continuing the commission's work. Scheck and Ellis write:

As we turn toward the next steps for the commission, it's critical to remember why the commission was created - and what the investigation of the Willingham case and other arson cases is really about. The commission was never investigating whether an innocent man had been executed; that's not its role. Instead, the commission is trying to determine whether the forensic analysts in the Willingham case negligently used unreliable methods, whether there are other past cases where unreliable arson analysis was employed, and what, if any, corrective action should be taken.

Read their full op-ed. (Houston Chronicle, 10/30/09)

Centurion Ministries and the Innocence Project of Florida are seeking DNA tests for Florida prisoner Gary Bennett, who was convicted of murder more than 25 years ago based in part on the testimony of discredited dog handler John Preston.

The Medill Innocence Project standoff with prosecutors stayed in the news this week: Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck discussed the case on NPR, and the New York Times reported on developments.

Exoneree Ronald Cotton and crime victim Jennifer Thompson-Cannino spoke on Kansas City public radio about eyewitness identification reform and their book "Picking Cotton."

Blogger Scott Greenfield wrote at Simple Justice about the legendary career of journalist Pete Shellem, who investigated wrongful convictions at the Patriot-News in Harrisburg, PA and died last weekend. Shellem's funeral will be held Monday.

A lieutenant in the Los Angeles Police Department wrote in the Christian Science Monitor this week that critical reforms to eyewitness procedures and police interrogations can prevent wrongful convictions.

A report from researchers at the George Mason University found that a caseload crisis has pushed Missouri's public defense system "to the brink of collapse."

Ernest Willis, who spent 17 years in prison for an arson murder before he was exonerated, this week called on Gov. Rick Perry to halt executions in the state. Wills was convicted based on evidence very similar to the evidence used against Cameron Todd Willingham. Texas Monthly posted a video interview with Willis. We updated the Willingham Resource Center with these stories and more media coverage of the case this week.

Prosecutorial misconduct is a major cause of wrongful convictions. More than 25% of the first 240 DNA exonerees cited prosecutorial misconduct in appeals or civil lawsuits. In 38% of those cases, prosecutors were alleged to have withheld evidence that could have proven innocence.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments next week in the case of Pottawattamie County v. McGhee, in which two Iowa men filed a civil rights lawsuit against prosecutors who allegedly coerced false testimony to convict them of crimes they didn't commit. Prosecutors in the case have claimed that they are protected by absolute immunity, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit disagreed, finding that prosecutors had violated the men's right to due process.

The case of Ralph Armstrong is an example of how withholding evidence and other misconduct can block justice. Armstrong, an Innocence Project client, served more than 28 years behind bars in Wisconsin for a murder evidence shows he didn't commit. He had been in prison for 14 years when a woman called the prosecutor to tell him Armstrong's brother had confessed to the murder. This phone call was not shared with defense attorneys.

In 2006, when Armstrong had been in prison for 25 years, prosecutors violated a court order and conducted secret DNA tests on evidence in the case. The results were inconclusive and the evidence was consumed, meaning no further testing could ever be conducted. In dismissing the case against Armstrong, a state judge wrote that the prosecutor's actions "stemmed from a series of conscious decisions that had very adverse consequences."

"This is a particularly chilling case of prosecutorial misconduct," Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck said after Armstrong was cleared. "Even after the state Supreme Court threw out Ralph Armstrong's conviction based on evidence of his innocence, the prosecutor continued to withhold yet more evidence of his innocence."

More on prosecutorial misconduct as a cause of wrongful conviction.

Scott, gripping his wife's hand, was reserved outside court.

"This has been a long time in coming," he said. "I'm happy to be here."

Read the full story here. (Austin American-Statesman, 10/28/09)

Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg said in a statement that dropping charges was her only path of action. "Given that we now have unknown DNA evidence in the case, I believe it would be imprudent and, in fact, unfair to proceed to trial at this time," she said.

"I could never admit to something I didn't do," said Bozella as he got his first taste of freedom in almost three decades on the steps of the Dutchess County Courthouse. "I'm very happy. It's going to take a little while before it really rubs in but I'm glad that it's at this stage now where I'm on the other side of the wall and the judge said 'Let him go'."

Read the full story here. (Mid Hudson News, 10/28/09)

Bozella is represented by pro-bono attorneys at the firm WilmerHale. The Innocence Project represented Bozella until it was clear that evidence did not exist for DNA testing, at which point the organization reached out to WilmerHale to take on the case. Over the last two years, WilmerHale attorneys have uncovered substantial evidence that Bozella is innocent and that another man actually committed the crime.

"It was almost like he was dead," Jewel says. "That's how bad it hurt."

Last year, DNA testing proved Cage's innocence and he was set free, after serving more than 12 years for a crime he didn't commit. He and Mitchell were reunited, and CNN will post part two of its story tomorrow. We'll post a link here when it's live.

CBS News also posted a story today on Cage's case.

Read more about Cage's case here.

"He is a one-man Innocence Project,'' Former Pennsylvania Attorney General Ernie Preate Jr., who was once investigated for fraud by Shellem, told American Journalism Review for a 2007 story. "The idea that a single, solitary newspaper reporter can accomplish all this is a remarkable story."

Shellem will be missed by people all over the country who work to overturn and prevent wrongful convictions, and by those whose lives are impacted by injustice. He is survived by a wife and two sons.

Read more. (Patriot-News, 10/26/09)