ANN ARBOR, Mich., Jan. 27 (UPI) -- Almost half of the record 125 convicts exonerated last year were cleared in cases where no crime was actually committed, a report released Tuesday said.
The National Registry of Exonerations, based at the University of Michigan Law School, said that 38 percent, or 47, had pleaded guilty to crimes they now appear not to have committed, while in 46 percent of the cases there had been no actual crime.
Texas led the way with 39 people exonerated. It was followed by New York with 17, Illinois and Michigan with seven each and Ohio with six. Another 10 were convicted in federal courts.
In 2013, 91 people were exonerated, the Registry reported. The editor, Professor Samuel Gross, credited prosecutors.
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"The big story for the year is that more prosecutors are working hard to identify and investigate claims of innocence. And many more innocent defendants were exonerated after pleading guilty to crimes they did not commit," Gross said.
The Houston area in Texas led the country with 33 exonerations. The Harris County District Attorney decided to re-examine drug cases where questions had been raised about the results of field or lab testing of allegedly illegal drugs.
"Harris County is a totally different story," Gross said. "These were guilty pleas by people who were shown to be not guilty when test results came back."
Most of those found to be innocent elsewhere were convicted of serious crimes.
Five of the six cleared in Ohio were convicted of murder and one of sexually abusing a child. They were Kwame Ajamu; Wiley Bridgemen, Ricky Jackson, and Anthony Lemons, all convicted of murder and all from Cleveland; Dewey Jones, convicted of murder in Akron; and Joel Covender of Lorain, convicted of sexual abuse.
In New York City's Brooklyn borough, the Conviction Integrity Unit of the District Attorney's Office exonerated 10 people last year, many of them convicted of murder based on investigations by one police lieutenant in the 1980s.
