Leonard Mack, a Black man who was wrongfully convicted of rape in 1976, has been exonerated based on new DNA evidence. Mack served seven and a half years in prison and endured 41 years of injustice before being cleared of the charges. Eyewitness misidentification, a prevalent factor in wrongful convictions, played a role in Mack’s case. The Innocence Project collaborated with the Westchester County District Attorney’s Conviction Review Unit to conduct a post-conviction inquiry and new DNA testing, which proved Mack’s innocence. Mack’s exoneration highlights the need to address racial bias and improve eyewitness identification processes to prevent wrongful convictions.
Source: theGrio [ Read More ]
