Nine months after he was exonerated in Houston, Ronnie Taylor is building a new life. He lives in Atlanta and is married to his longtime girlfriend, Jeanette Brown, who waited for him while he served 14 years behind bars. He owns his own lawn care business.

(He) says that "everything's going lovely, man," and only when you press him will he tell you about his medical problems, his lack of health insurance, his debt and the trouble he has on job and credit and rental applications explaining 14 missing years of his life.

An article in the Houston Press this week catches up with Taylor and looks back at the long, hard years he spent in prison, waiting for a chance to prove his innocence. The article also examines the state of criminal justice in Houston and statewide in Texas, and finds that reforms haven’t moved fast enough to prevent future injustice like Taylor’s.

Texas has experienced 34 DNA exonerations - more than any other state - and "these compounding exonerations," as State Senator Rodney Ellis says, "are clear and convincing evidence that our criminal justice system is broken." Time after time, Ellis has pushed reforms to prevent the conviction of innocent people, but most of these proposals have been defeated, mostly on the grounds that they're unnecessary. Ellis is baffled. Only in criminal justice, he says, do "you get a knee-jerk reaction that the system is just fine and improvements aren't needed. At times, it seems there's more of an effort in trying to ignore mistakes than any real effort to address them."

Read the full story here. (Houston Press, 10/09/08)

Watch a video interview with Ronnie Taylor here.

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After spending two decades in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, Scott Fappiano was exonerated on October 6, 2006. Tuesday marked his two-year anniversary.

Fappiano was convicted of a Brooklyn, New York, rape in 1983 and sentenced to 20-50 years in prison. The victim of the crime was the wife of a New York City police officer, and the officer witnessed the attack. While the victim identified Fappiano in a photo lineup and a subsequent lineup, the officer identified one of the lineup “fillers” as the perpetrator. (Fillers are the lineup participants who are not suspects.)

Fappiano was granted access to DNA testing in 1989, four years after he was convicted, but tests at the time were inconclusive. The Innocence Project accepted his case in 2003, and secured more advanced testing. The tests, conducted in 2005, proved that Fappiano could not have been the perpetrator. Greeting his family after his conviction was vacated in October of 2006, he said, "I missed having a family. I feel like I never left. Maybe I'm in shock. I feel like I could go on like tomorrow is just another day."

If the Innocence Project had been unable to locate evidence from the crime scene in 1983, Fappiano may never have been cleared. New York City has had a history of problems with evidence preservation; when Fappiano was exonerated, the Innocence Project had six open cases and 17 closed cases where evidence could not be found.

Find out if your state requires the preservation of evidence.

Other Exoneree Anniversaries This Week

Brian Piszczeck, Ohio (Served 3 years, Exonerated 1994)

Douglas Echols, Georgia (Served 5 years, Exonerated 2002)

Samuel Scott, Georgia (Served 15 years, Exonerated 2002)

Kevin Byrd, Texas (Served 12 years, Exonerated 1997)

William Harris, West Virginia (Served 7 years, Exonerated 1995)

Calvin Washington, Texas (Served 13 years, Exonerated 2001)

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Jerry Miller spent nearly 25 years in Illinois prison for a rape he didn’t commit, and one year on parole as a registered sex offender, before DNA testing obtained by attorneys at the Innocence Project proved his innocence. On April 23, 2007, he became the 200th person exonerated by DNA testing in U.S. history. Yesterday, he spoke to a meeting of criminal defense lawyers in Champaign, Illinois.

"If you just be realistic about life, what in life is perfect?" the 50-year-old man asked a room full of defense attorneys. "Struggle makes character."

"The system is not perfect, and I'm a prime example of that," Miller told the attorneys. "I never gave up. You lose hope but you can't never give up."

Read the full story here. (Urbana-Champaign News-Gazette, 10/08/08)

Miller says it has been difficult readjusting to society after his release, but he’s getting on track now. He recently started attending a truck driving school to train for work as a driver.

Read more about life after exoneration here.

Watch a three-minute video interview with Miller.

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As the deadline nears for Michigan lawmakers to renew a DNA access bill, there is speculation about when - or whether - the State Senate will act to extend the rights of prisoners to apply for DNA testing that can prove their innocence.

Donna McKneelen, the co-director of the Innocence Project at Cooley Law School in Lansing, says enacting the testing law is necessary to protect the rights of defendants, and public safety.

"Unless the state Senate makes this bill a priority," she says, "innocent people will remain in prison while the actual perpetrators of crime remain at large."

Read an update here. (Detroit Metro Times, 10/08/08)

Read coverage of the issue in the Grand Rapids Media Mouse blog.

Innocence Project supporters in Michigan are speaking up to their Senators this week, urging them to extend the law. If you live in Michigan, send your email now.

If you live outside of Michigan, send the campaign to friends in the state.

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After Detroit officials closed the city’s police crime lab two weeks ago, prosecutors vowed to conduct an investigation to get to the bottom of the lab’s 10 percent error rate. But defense attorneys said yesterday that a review by prosecutors isn’t good enough, and they called for an independent audit of the lab before it could reopen.

William Winters, president of the Wayne County Criminal Defense Bar Association, said he is troubled by the prospect of local prosecutors leading the investigation.

"You just have to avoid any appearance of impropriety," he said. "You really can't afford to have prosecutors reviewing their own cases."

Read the full story here. (Detroit Free Press, 10/7/08)

Read more about the Detroit lab closing here, and learn about the Innocence Project’s recommendations for independent forensic oversight.

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The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court will meet on Friday to discuss the fate of Troy Davis, who has been on Georgia’s death row since 1989 for a murder he says he didn’t commit. Although some observers had expected the justices to discuss the case yesterday, they issued orders in other cases and stayed mum on the Davis case. The court is considering whether Davis deserves a hearing based on new evidence of his innocence, or if Georgia can execute him. The Supreme Court issued a stay just two hours before Davis’ scheduled execution on Sept. 23.

“It’s obviously a very important case and the justices are still considering it,” Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor, said. “Maybe the justices are split about it and want more time to consider it.”

Read the full story here. (Associated Press, 10/6/08)

Read more about Davis’ case here.

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