This major investigative series from the Tribune documents hundreds of homicide cases where innocent people were sent to jail, some to Death Row, because of the "egregious misconduct" of prosecutors, usually in the form of suppressing evidence or using evidence that they knew to be false. The study begins in 1963, when the Supreme Court ruling in Brady v. Maryland forbad prosecutors from "suppressing evidence favorable to a defendant for purposes of determining guilt or imposing a sentence." In their search for cases that violated this ruling, the Tribune examined approximately 11,000 court rulings and 8,700 news stories on wrongful convictions or prosecutor misconduct. At the site, users can navigate a clickable map to view state lists of defendants whose murder convictions were overturned, overviews of selected states, and summaries of representative cases. To view these resources users must sign up to get a free password from the Chicago Tribune.
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