About the Registry

The National Registry of Exonerations is a project of the University of Michigan Law School. It was founded in 2012 in conjunction with the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law. The Registry provides 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

A Record- 125 Exonerations in 2014
1/27/2015

​In 2014, for the first time in the United States, there were more than 100 exonerations in a single year—125 that are known to date, 34 more than the previous record of 91 exonerations in 2013. A major reason for the record number of exonerations is the impact of Conviction Integrity Units (CIUs), units within prosecutors’ offices that work to identify and remedy false convictions in cases they originally prosecuted. The National Registry of Exonerations’ 2014 Report, based on the 1,535 exonerations known as of January 20, 2015, also discusses trends such as the increase in exonerations in cases without biological evidence or with no actual perpetrator; cases with comparatively light sentences; and judgments based on guilty pleas. Check out out our infographic with 2014 exoneration records here.

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We currently list more than 1,530 exonerations. For detailed information browse our ever-growing database.

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For reports, graphs, summaries of our findings, criteria for exoneration, and more visit our Learn More section.

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Recent Exonerations
Joseph Sledge
State: NC
Date of Exoneration: 1/23/2015
In 1978, Joseph Sledge, Jr. was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of two women in Elizabethtown, North Carolina. He ws exonerated in January 2014 after DNA tests eliminated him as the source of hairs found on the victims and a jailhouse informant recanted his claim that Sledge had confessed to him in prison. (Photograph by Ethan Hyman, News & Observer)

Donald Stiers
State: TX
Date of Exoneration: 1/13/2015
In September 2014, Donald Stiers pled guilty to possession of a controlled substance in Harris County, Texas and was sentenced to two years in prison. He was exonerated in January 2015 after laboratory tests were negative for a controlled substance.

David Bates
State: IL
Date of Exoneration: 1/12/2015
In 1985, David Bates was convicted of murder in Chicago based on his confession and that of a co-defendant. He was granted a new trial because the confessions were obtained by torture by Chicago police under the command of Lt. Jon Burge. Bates was acquitted at a retrial in 1995, and was pardoned  by Illinois Governor Pat Quinn in January 2015 on the basis of actual innocence.

Derrick Hamilton
State: NY
Date of Exoneration: 1/9/2015
In 1992, Derrick Hamilton was convicted of second-degree murder in Brooklyn, New York and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. He was exonerated in 2015 after numerous witnesses said he was in Connecticut at the time of the crime and the only eyewitness admitted falsely identifying him after being threatened by New York Police detective Louis Scarcella. (Photo by James Kelvom, New York Daily News) 

Milyn Pierce
State: TX
Date of Exoneration: 1/8/2015
In June 2014, Milyn Pierce pled guilty in Montgomery County to possessing a controlled substance and was sentenced to six months in jail. She was exonerated in January 2015 after a lab report was negative for a controlled substance.