A Record 125 Exonerations in 2014

By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma

The National Registry of Exonerations has put out its annual report detailing a record number of convictions overturned in 2014. In New York, 14 men and three women were exonerated of crimes ranging from homicide to drug trafficking. More than half the New York cases — at least ten — come out of Brooklyn, where a new district attorney took office at the beginning of the year. As show in this infographic, that leaves Kings County second only to Houston in exonerations last year. All but three of the New York cases were flagged as involving official misconduct and most come from the 1980s and 1990s, when police tactics eliciting false confessions and false testimony were routine. Much remains to be done, as convictions from that time in other parts of the city get a second look from defense lawyers and prosecutors.