About the Registry

The National Registry of Exonerations is a joint project of the University of Michigan Law School and the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law. We provide detailed information about every known exoneration in the United States since 1989—cases in which a person was wrongly convicted of a crime and later cleared of all the charges based on new evidence of innocence.

Exoneration News

Dallas DA's Office Pioneers New Systematic DNA Testing Project
7/24/2014

​Michael Phillips will soon be the first innocent defendant in the country to be exonerated by a program of systematic DNA testing by a prosecutor's office even though he was not asserting his innocence or asking for DNA testing. His exoneration is the work of the Conviction Integrity Unit of the Dallas DA's Office - the first such unit in the country, founded by DA Craig Watkins in 2007. The Systematic DNA Testing Project was suggested by Registry Editor Sam Gross, who worked on it with the Dallas DA's Office. A copy of the Unit's Report on the Phillips case can be found here.

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We currently list more than 1,400 exonerations. For detailed information browse our ever-growing database.

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Featured Exonerations
Kevin Martin
State: DC
Date of Exoneration: 7/21/2014
In 1984, Kevin Martin pled no contest to manslaughter in a rape/murder case in Washington, D.C., and was sentenced to 15 years to life. The prosecution had claimed that FBI analysis matched a hair found at the scene to Martin. He was exonerated in July 2014 when DNA tests on the hair and the rape kit excluded Martin as the perpetrator. (Photo of Kevin Martin by Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)

Mark Woodworth
State: MO
Date of Exoneration: 7/15/2014
In 1995 Mark Woodworth was convicted in Chillicothe, Missouri, for a murder that was committed in 1990 when he was 16. He was exonerated in 2014 after it was discovered that the prosecution had concealed documents pointing to a different suspect.

Nathan Brown
State: LA
Date of Exoneration: 6/25/2014
In 1997, Nathan Brown was convicted of attempted rape in Metairie, Louisiana and sentenced to 25 years in prison. His conviction was based solely on an eyewitness identification by the victim. He was exonerated in June 2014 after DNA tests obtained by the Innocence Project excluded Brown and linked the biological evidence to a convicted felon in prison in Mississippi. (Brown with Innocence Project lawyer Vanessa Potkin)

Lewis Gardner
State: IL
Date of Exoneration: 6/24/2014
Lewis Gardner (left) and Paul Phillips were among seven innocent men charged with a 1992 double murder in Chicago. In 1995, Gardner and Phillips were convicted of murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison. They were exonerated in June 2014 after investigations by the Chicago Tribune, the Illinois Attorney General's Office and the Center on Wrongful Convictions revealed that police and prosecutors coerced confessions and concealed evidence. Two other co-defendants, Daniel Taylor and Deon Patrick were previously exonerated. (Photo by Chicago Tribune)