Innocent but Still Guilty

After Fred Steese spent two decades in a Nevada prison for murder, evidence indicating that he was innocent was found buried in the prosecution’s files. It was proof that Mr. Steese, as he’d always claimed, had been hundreds of miles away on the likely day of the murder and couldn’t have been the killer.

In Maryland two years earlier, the conviction of James Thompson, who had also served 20 years for murder and rape and whose case involved police and prosecutorial misconduct, was thrown into overwhelming doubt when his DNA didn’t match the semen found in the victim.

The Innocence Deniers

avontae Sanford was 14 years old when he confessed to murdering four people in a drug house on Detroit’s East Side. Left alone with detectives in a late-night interrogation, Sanford says he broke down after being told he could go home if he gave them “something.” On the advice of a lawyer whose license was later suspended for misconduct, Sanford pleaded guilty in the middle of his March 2008 trial and received a sentence of 39 to 92 years in prison.

Demand For Oklahoma Innocence Project Grows After Successful Exonerations

The Oklahoma Innocence Project’s caseload is growing after the non-profit scored a legal victory last year that exonerated two former inmates.

In May 2016, Malcolm Scott and De’Marchoe Carpenter left prison for the first time in 16 years after the Oklahoma Innocence Project cleared the two men. Both were wrongfully convicted in the 1994 murder of Karen Summers and sentenced to life plus 170 years.

And Justice For All

On May 9, 2016, after spending 22 years in prison for being accused and convicted of killing a 19-year-old woman, Malcolm Scott and De’Marchoe Carpenter were exonerated for a crime that they did not commit. Scott and Carpenter wrote and requested help for 22 years, until finally someone heard their plea. Years after standing by their innocence, the Oklahoma chapter of the Innocence Project took up their cause. 

A Death Row Convict’s Final Words Set Two Innocent Men Free

De’Marchoe Carpenter was running out of time.

He’d lost an appeal, Oklahoma’s governor twice denied him parole, and his post-conviction lawyers had just informed him that a key witness died of kidney failure. They were forced to mothball his case. But here Carpenter was, waiting among a flock of prisoners in a penitentiary gymnasium with a heart full of hope.

Innocence Project Exonerees Recall 22 Years Behind Bars

For most of us, an incredible number of life events took place between 1994 and 2016. Marriages, babies, vacations, job changes.

For De’Marchoe Carpenter and Malcolm Scott, those 22 years included days that mostly looked the same — exercising, watching TV, writing letters, praying — all while incarcerated for a crime neither man committed.

Tulsa Men Wrongfully Convicted of Murder Thank Those Who Helped Free Them

They spent more than 20 years in prison for crime they didn’t commit. Two men are free, but the journey isn’t over.

Malcolm Scott and De’Marchoe Carpenter were wrongfully convicted of murder when they were just 18.

Tulsa Man Wrongfully Imprisoned for 21 Years Speaks Out

Malcolm Scott has changed a lot in his life after spending nearly two decades in prison for a crime he didn't commit.

"I wasn't given this second chance just to get out here and be nothing. You know? God gave me this chance for a reason, and I know this is just the beginning," Scott said.