This is powerful testimony:

"It was burned into my mind, my eyes ... what he looked like," the victim in the case, the Rev. Herbert Harrison Sr., testified at the trial. "I made sure that I knew who was trying to take my life."

Problem is, confidence in the accuracy of an identification doesn't correlate with actual accuracy. Harrison picked Aquil Wiggins from an array of six photographs. The array was tainted by the inclusion of pictures that didn't fit Harrison's description of the assailant -- an error that would have focused Harrison's attention on the pictures that more closely resembled the description. [more ...]

Finally, some good news from Texas.

District Attorney Craig Watkins is using a $453,900 grant from the New York-based Justice, Equality, Human Dignity and Tolerance Foundation to pay for post-conviction DNA testing. With the help of law students, Watkins' office is reviewing hundreds of requests by inmates, including requests denied under the previous district attorney. The grant also requires Dallas County commissioners to fund the DA's office for two additional years.

The grant also funds three positions at the Innocence Project of Texas. Money well spent.

This attempt to free wrongly convicted people comes at a time when there is a proliferation of cases overturned by new DNA evidence nationwide. In Texas since 2001, DNA testing has cleared 33 people who spent a combined 427 years in prison.

Two decades after being convicted of murder in Tennessee and sentenced to death, after losing an appeal, losing a habeas proceeding, and losing an appeal from the denial of his habeas petition, Paul House persuaded the Supreme Court that new DNA testing established his probable innocence. The Court therefore applied the "actual innocence" exception to the rule that a habeas proceeding must be commenced within a year after the state proceedings become final -- much to the dismay of the Tennessee prosecutors who can't admit they sent the wrong man to death row.

That might have been a happy ending, but the story isn't over. Two years later, House is still behind bars "while a prosecutor methodically battles every effort from the courts to have him retried." [More...]

Are states finally starting to understand that our flawed criminal justice system makes it too easy to convict the innocent? This post yesterday noted the formation of a task force in New York to study the causes of wrongful convictions in that state. There's more good news today, this time from Texas:

In reaction to the growing number of exonerations across the state, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals announced Wednesday that it is creating a Texas Criminal Justice Integrity Unit to investigate and address weaknesses in the criminal justice system.

Texas has a particularly bad history of convicting the innocent, as the court recognized:

What happens after an innocent man is set free? He becomes "a power of one." As should we all.

There's no doubt about this:

Manhattan attorney Bernice Leber, named president of the 74,000-member [New York State Bar] association on Monday, says that for every wrongful conviction that surfaces, unknown numbers of others remain unfairly resolved.

That's because most wrongful convictions have been uncovered by advances in DNA technology, while most crimes do not involve DNA evidence. Those who minimize the problem of wrongful convictions, claiming that "only" 200 exonerations have occurred (as of April) fail to grasp that fact.

Kudos, then, to the NY State Bar Association for establishing a task force to "analyze New York cases that led to wrongful convictions and hold hearings." Those states that have not done so should conduct their own studies to suggest means of assuring that their criminal justice systems do not convict the innocent.

Don't miss "60 Minutes" tonight. It features the work of the Innocence Project of Texas, where in Dallas alone, 17 men have been freed after DNA proved them innocent. It includes an interview with several freed inmates, concentrating on James Woodward, freed last week after serving 27 years for a rape and murder he did not commit. The Texas Senate will be holding a summit on the wrongfully convicted on May 8.

Update: This was one of the most moving segments "60 Minutes" has ever done. It ends by telling viewers another 250 cases in Dallas County alone are under investigation. Watch it online if you missed it on TV.

Dallas County just set two records. James Lee Woodard is the latest of 17 wrongfully convicted defendants in Dallas County who have been released as the result of new DNA analysis, the most DNA exonerations of any county. Dallas County also kept Woodard behind bars for more time than any other inmate who has been exonerated by DNA.

Mr. Woodard, 55, was sentenced to life in prison in 1981 for the strangulation and rape of his 21-year-old girlfriend, Beverly Ann Jones. But information that Ms. Jones was with three men – including two later convicted of unrelated sexual assaults – around the time of her death was not disclosed to the defense nor was it thoroughly investigated, said prosecutor Mike Ware, who oversees the Dallas County district attorney's office conviction integrity unit.

Rodney Ellis, a member of the Texas Senate, has been trying to get the state to fund an Innocence Commission. He's organized a forum to be held next week that will focus on the prevention of wrongful convictions. Jeralyn has more here.

James Lee Woodford was released from a Texas prison today after serving 27 years for a murder that DNA evidence now shows he didn't commit.

Woodward is the 18th Dallas County inmate, and the 31sth in Texas, to be exonerated by DNA testing.

Also today, State Senator Rodney Ellis announced that Texas will hold a summit on wrongful convictions on May 8 at the state capitol. [More...]

Alton Logan's mother and grandmother both died during his 26 years in prison. He had the chance to visit their graves this weekend, after his release from a sentence for a murder that was likely committed by someone else.

Two attorneys for a convicted cop killer had known for 26 years of Logan's innocence but had kept silent because of the attorney-client privilege. Their client, Andrew Wilson, had confessed to them that he shotgunned a security guard to death in January 1982, but he insisted they only reveal his admission after his death. Wilson, who was serving a life sentence for the murders of two Chicago police officers, died in prison of natural causes Nov. 19.

On Friday, a judge listened to the testimony of a former employee of the McDonald's where the security guard was killed. The employee identified a picture of Wilson as the killer. A witness who tutored Wilson in prison testified that Wilson once told him about shooting a gun in a McDonald's. Prosecutors insist that Logan is guilty, but Judge James Schreier ruled that the new evidence made it reasonably probable that Logan would be acquitted if he were tried again. He freed Logan on $1,000 bail.

Cynthia Sommer spent the last 2 years and 4 months in jail. She was convicted in 2007 of murdering her Marine husband by poisoning him with arsenic.

She left jail today after new tests showed there was no arsenic. The prosecution moved to dismiss all charges against her.

Her defense lawyers point out:

“No one should say that this system worked,” he said. “This dismissal wasn't because of the prosecution's efforts; it was done because the defense demanded it.”

At a hearing in Texas today, Thomas McGowan will be freed from a Dallas prison after serving 23 years for a rape and burglary DNA has proven he didn't commit.

McGowan will be the 25th person in Texas to have been convicted of a crime based on faulty eyewitness testimony and later exonerated by DNA testing.

Thomas McGowan was in his mid-20s when he was arrested, and he’ll turn 50 later this year. He has lost nearly his entire adult life to a wrongful conviction that could have – and should have – been prevented,” said Barry Scheck, Co-Director of the Innocence Project, which is affiliated with Cardozo School of Law. “This is the 25th case in Texas where DNA proved that eyewitness identification was incorrect. How many more people need to lose years or decades of their lives before the state implements simple reforms that are proven to make eyewitness identification more accurate?”

The Innocence Project has much more on the case.

In Michigan, 29 year old Nathanial Hackett has been freed after serving 12 years for a rape DNA testing as shown he did not commit. His conviction was based in part upon a coerced false confession.