Conviction review
Convictions that were overturned, and innocence claims courts are ruling on this week. Read what the evidence was and where it broke.
Alexander McClay Williams
Alexander McClay Williams (July 23, 1914 – June 8, 1931) was an African-American teenager wrongfully convicted and executed for the 1930 murder of 33-year-old Vida Robare, a matron of the Glen Mills reform school he attended, in Pennsylvania. Williams confessed to the murder during an interrogation in which neither a parent nor an attorney was present. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania wrongfully executed Williams…
1982 · PennsylvaniaOverturned
Imprisonment of Subramanyam Vedam
Subramanyam "Subu" Vedam, an Indian-American man from State College, Pennsylvania, was arrested in 1982 at 19 for the fatal shooting of his friend, 19-year-old Thomas Kinser from Boalsburg, Pennsylvania. He was wrongfully convicted of murder by the Centre County Court of Common Pleas and sentenced to life in prison in 1983. After being incarcerated for 43 years at SCI Huntingdon, Vedam was exonerated of first-degree…
2003 · PennsylvaniaOverturned
Nick Yarris
Nicholas James Yarris (born May 18, 1961) is an American writer and storyteller who spent 22 years on death row in Pennsylvania after being wrongfully convicted of rape and murder. Yarris was exonerated by DNA testing in 2003. He was released from prison in 2004 after a separate 30-year sentence he received in Florida for lesser crimes committed after he escaped from custody in 1985 was reduced to time served.
1976 · PennsylvaniaOverturnedRay Krone
Ray Krone (born January 19, 1957) is an American who was wrongfully convicted of murder. He was the 100th inmate exonerated from death row since the death penalty in the United States was reinstated in 1976. Krone was born and raised in Dover Township, York County, Pennsylvania and graduated from Dover Area High School in 1974.
1986 · PennsylvaniaOverturnedJay C. Smith
Jay C. Smith (June 5, 1928 – May 12, 2009) was an American high school principal in Pennsylvania who was convicted and sentenced to death in 1986 for the 1979 murder of one of his school's teachers, Susan Reinert, and her two children, Karen and Michael. His conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in 1992, based on findings of judicial and prosecutorial misconduct. Smith subsequently filed…
1988 · PennsylvaniaOverturnedWalter Ogrod case
Walter Ogrod is an American man who was convicted and sentenced to death for the July 12, 1988, sexual assault and murder of four-year-old Barbara Jean Horn in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. According to police, Ogrod confessed to Horn's murder four years after it occurred, but in 2020 the "confession" was recognized to be false. On June 5 of that year, Ogrod's conviction was vacated by the Philadelphia Court of Common…
1982 · PennsylvaniaOverturnedLewis Fogle
Lewis "Jim" Fogle is an American man who was wrongly convicted in 1982 for the murder of a 15-year-old girl. Fogle's conviction was vacated on DNA evidence in 2015, after he was forced to spend 34 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. In July 1975, 15-year-old Deann Katherine "Kathy" Long, of Cherry Tree, Indiana County, Pennsylvania, was raped and murdered by shooting of a firearm, in the head.
2020 · PennsylvaniaExonerated 2020Termaine Hicks
In 2002, Termaine Hicks was wrongly convicted of a sexual assault he did not commit in Philadelphia. He was exonerated in 2020.
1985 · PennsylvaniaExonerated 1996Vincent Moto
Wrongly convicted of a rape in Pennsylvania, Vincent Moto walked out of prison after eight years of incarceration in July 1996.
2004 · PennsylvaniaExonerated 2004Barry Laughman
Barry Laughman was wrongly convicted of raping and murdering his neighbor in Pennsylvania in 1988. He was later exonerated in 2004.
2026 · Supreme Court of PennsylvaniaIn courtCommonwealth v. Brown, L.; of: Family Members
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania issued an opinion on June 16, 2026 that deals with an innocence claim. From the opinion: “…the allegations therein were based on “newly discovered evidence . . . obtained from review of homicide…”
2003 · PennsylvaniaExonerated 2003Nicholas Yarris
Nicholas Yarris was finally freed from a Pennsylvania prison in 2004 after spending over 21 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit.
2002 · PennsylvaniaExonerated 2002Bruce Godschalk
In May 1987, Bruce Godschalk was wrongly convicted of two counts of forcible rape and two counts of burglary in Pennsylvania.
2005 · PennsylvaniaExonerated 2005Thomas Doswell
On August 1, 2005, Thomas Doswell was released from prison after serving almost 19 years for a crime he did not commit.
1994 · PennsylvaniaExonerated 1994Dale Brison
In 1991, Dale Brison was wrongly convicted of a sexual assault based on eyewitness misidentification and misapplied forensic science.
1993 · PennsylvaniaExonerated 2016Anthony Wright
Anthony Wright endured two trials and 25 years in prison before a jury found him not guilty of the 1991 rape and murder of an elderly woman in Philadelphia.
2015 · PennsylvaniaExonerated 2015Lewis Fogle
In 1982, Lewis Fogle was wrongly convicted of a murder he did not commit in Pennsylvania. He was later exonerated in 2015.