Recent Findings
As of March 1, 2015:
Conviction Integrity Units: 2014 saw a substantial increase in the number of Conviction Integrity Units (CIUs) - units in prosecutors' offices that review and investigate post-conviction claims of innocence - from 9 CIUs in 2013, to 15 in 2014. CIUs played a role in 49 exonerations in 2014. In all previous years combined, CIUs were responsible for only 41 exonerations.
Guilty Pleas: Guilty pleas account for more than 95% of criminal convictions in the US, but only 200 of the 1,555 exonerations in the Registry, about 13%. Recently we have seen an increase in guilty plea exonerations: almost a quarter of all guilty plea exonerations in the Registry occurred in 2014 (47/200).
Record Breaking Year: 2014 was a record breaking year. We knew of 125 exonerations in 2014 as of the end of the year; and we listed 127 exonerations in 2014 as of March 1, 2015.