Kash Delano Register
Kash Delano Register was only 19 years old when he was arrested and sentenced to 27 years to life in prison for killing 78-year-old Jack Sasson in April of 1979, but he has always maintained his innocence.
During his trial that same year, key witness Brenda Anderson testified that Register, whom she had gone to high school with, shot her elderly neighbor to death. Thirty-four years later, Anderson’s sister Sharon took the stand and said the account, which helped send the young man to prison, was a lie.
Earlier this month, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge sided with Sharon Anderson and threw out the conviction of Register, who maintained his innocence during more than three decades as inmate No. C11693, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Register took his first steps of freedom on Friday November 8, 2013. The 53-year-old exonerated inmate was transported from a Northern California jail to the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in downtown Los Angeles, where he left a free man, CBS Los Angeles reported.
“It was just an emotional feeling that just came out of nowhere,” Register said. “Finally, after 34 years.”
Kash Register has not yet announced whether he’ll seek compensation for his false conviction and imprisonment, although it is likely.
source: atlantablackstar.com
Alan Newton
Alan Newton was between 26 and 27 years old when he was convicted in 1985 of rape, robbery and assault in the Bronx, New York, largely on the basis of testimony from the victim and an eye witnesses. Newton maintained that he was innocent and said that he had been mistakenly identified. He was eventually sentenced to up to 40 years in prison and spent the next 22 years behind bars away from his daughter and fiance.
At about 4:00 AM on June 23, 1984, the 25-year-old victim stopped at a convenience store in the Bronx, New York. As the victim was leaving the store, she was grabbed from behind by another customer, who put a box cutter to her throat. The assailant raped her in a park and in an abandoned building, then cut her face leaving her blind in one eye. While still recovering in the hospital, she identified Newton out of almost 200 photos.
Newton had asked for a DNA test in 1994, but his request was denied because evidence had been presumed to be lost. After another 11 years of searching, the rape kit was found and post conviction DNA testing then proved that Newton was not the perpetrator of this crime. Newton was released in 2006.
A jury awarded him $18.5 million in compensation, but Judge Shira Scheindlin took it away arguing that Newton didn’t deserve the money because the city had not intentionally violated his civil rights.
source: innocenceproject.org
