Louisiana man proved innocent after 22 years in jail

Image: The Innocence Project

A long-overdue serology test very recently demonstrated that Booker Diggins, a man imprisoned for rape and armed robbery since 1988, could not have committed the crimes for which he convicted. Although the prosecutors for the State had procured blood type evidence from the rape kit at the time of the trial, they withheld it from Diggins' defense team. As a result, the jury never heard that the man who committed the rape had type A blood, while Diggins has type O.

The Innocence Project, a nonprofit founded in 1992 by Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld, has been providing legal assistance to prisoners who could potentially prove their innocence through DNA testing. To date, 258 people have been exonerated by the Innocence Project, including 17 death row inmates. The number of cases that the Innocence Project works on, however, represents only a small portion of the total number of people in prison, on death row, or even executed for crimes they didn't commit. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, in the united States, 138 people in all have been exonerated from death row since 1973. Wikipedia contains a lengthy list of death row exonerees, and Northwestern University School of Law's Centre on Wrongful Convictions lists 39 people who have been executed despite compelling evidence of actual innocence. All over the country, lawyers, law students, and others donate their time and energy, working hard in the cause of justice for the wrongfully convicted, for the victims, and to protect others from the violent criminals who have gotten away and are still free to commit more crimes.