By John Legend It’s been a year since I traveled to Baton Rouge to support a series of reforms to reduce the incarceration rate in Louisiana. Many of those reforms — such as the overhaul of the state’s parole system and modifications…
By Alanah Odoms Hebert When prosecutors prioritize winning convictions over advancing justice and ensuring fair trials, they risk convicting the innocent. Time and time again in Louisiana, innocent lives have been destroyed by wrongful convictions, while the prosecutors responsible have…
By Natalie Schwartz On Robert Jones’ 44th birthday in 2017, the state of Louisiana dropped all charges against him — charges that had resulted in him spending more than half his life behind bars. At 19, Jones was arrested and…
By Sue Strachan The theme for the 17th annual Innocence Project New Orleans Gala was “Together We Persist,” recognizing the persistence over the years of IPNO staff and interns in solving cases, as well as the persistence that its clients and…
By Matt Sledge In the latest skirmish over claims of prosecutorial misconduct in Louisiana, a nonprofit law firm is asking the state Supreme Court to suspend the prosecutor who oversaw what it says was an Avondale man’s wrongful conviction for…
A 59-year-old man who had been sentenced to life imprisonment for a murder he did not commit was released from the Louisiana State Penitentiary. Gerald Manning was 17 when he was sentenced for the rape and murder of Vonda Harris…
By Heather Nolan A federal appeals court has denied a request by Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro’s office to re-hear the case of John Floyd, who spent 36 years locked up for a murder he says he didn’t commit. Floyd was…
Opinion by Kristin Wenstrom and Jee Park At age 16, Brendan Dassey was aggressively interrogated by police officers in Wisconsin over a 48-hour period. Most of the time, Brendan sat slumped over with a blank look on his face. Officers…
By John Simerman A federal appeals court panel has denied a bid by the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office to challenge an April ruling that found ample evidence John Floyd was innocent of the 1980 stabbing murder of a Times-Picayune…
by Grace Toohey For more than four decades in prison, Gerald Manning maintained his innocence — serving time for a brutal murder and rape for which he was convicted as a juvenile — until, only recently, DNA evidence bolstered his…
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