Michigan exonerated 11 wrongfully convicted people last year

DETROIT (FOX 2) - Eleven Michiganders were exonerated in 2021, according to the National Registry of Exonerations. 

Exponentiations occur when a person was wrongfully convicted and new evidence shows their innocence, or they are relieved of legal consequences by an official, such as when a pardon is granted. 

This year, Michigan has already exonerated three people who were all serving life sentences for murders they did not commit.

Across the country, men and women who were wrongfully convicted have lost more than 25,000 years of life to incarceration since 1989, not including time spent behind bars as their cases progressed before sentencing. Wrongly convicted Michiganders have lost 1,539 years of life to prison as of April 11.

Related: Detroit reaches $7.5 million settlement with Davontae Sanford after wrongful conviction

Shawn Brown, Terry Ceasor, Juwan Deering, Corey McCall, Tonia Miller, Kenneth Nixon, David, Owens, Gilbert Poole Jr., Joe Romeo, Larry Smith Jr., and Paul Young were the 11 people cleared of crimes in Michigan in 2021.

Michigan had the third most exonerations last year, tying with California. New York had 18, and Illinois had 38. In 2020, Michigan had the second-highest number of exonerations.

Conviction Integrity Units were key in helping secure exonerations, including Poole's. Poole was the first person exonerated by the Michigan Attorney General's Office's CIU.

Related: Washtenaw County creates Conviction Integrity and Expungement Unit

That CIU was established in 2019 to review cases and see if someone was wrongfully convicted. If evidence is uncovered, they push for the exoneration of innocent people.

Before their exonerations, five people in Michigan were serving sentences of life without parole while one person had a life sentence. 

Like the rest of the country, most of Michigan's exonerated cases were murders, with eight people being exonerated for murders they did not commit. The other cases involved manslaughter, drug possession or sale, and child abuse.

Nationwide, homicide exonerations, including murder and manslaughter, accounted for 48% of exonerations, followed by non-violent crimes such as drug crimes and weapon possession (32%), other violent crimes such as robbery and attempted murder (15%), and sex crimes (6%).

Perjury or false accusations were the most prevalent contributing factor in 2021 exonerations, both in Michigan and across the country. Sixty-six percent of cases in the United States had perjury or false accusations involved, while 64% of Michigan cases listed this as a factor.

Official misconduct was involved in almost 55% of Michigan's exoneration cases. Nationwide, 63% of cases involved some type of official misconduct. This includes police, prosecutors, or other government officials abusing their power to convict a person of a crime.