This is a list of miscarriage of justice cases. This list includes cases where a convicted individual was later cleared of the crime and either has received an official exoneration, or a consensus exists that the individual was unjustly punished or where a conviction has been quashed and no retrial has taken place, so that the accused is legally assumed innocent. This list is not exhaustive. Crime descriptions with an asterisk indicate that the events were later determined not to be criminal acts.
List of cases
Argentina Date of crime Defendant(s) Crime Location Sentence Time served Legally exoneratedJanuary 25, 2005Fernando Ariel CarreraAggravated manslaughter and robberyBuenos Aires30 years6 yearsYesFernando Ariel Carrera was wrongly suspected by police of carrying out a robbery in January 2005 (Masacre de Pompeya (es)). He was stopped by police while driving, and as the officers failed to identify themselves as police, he panicked and tried to escape. The police then shot at his car as he escaped, and he was hit eight times. While unconscious, his car continued driving for 200 meters and fatally ran down two women and a child. Carrera was taken to hospital in serious condition and survived. He was subsequently put on trial, and in June 2007 was convicted of robbery and aggravated manslaughter. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison, which was subsequently reduced to 15 years. Irregularities were found in his case. He was released on a court order in 2013, though without being declared innocent. The Supreme Court of Argentina officially exonerated him in October 2016.
Armenia Date of crime Defendant(s) Crime Location Sentence Time served Legally exoneratedOctober 8, 1998Armen PoghosyanRape and murderSaratovka, Armenia15 years in prison5 years, 6 monthsYesPoghosyan was arrested in 1998 on suspicion of rape and murder. He and his brother were subjected to physical violence by the police (beating, punching, kicking, blows to the ears causing a broken eardrum, forced to sit on a bottle) to force a confession from Poghosyan. The Lori Regional Court convicted Poghosyan of rape and murder in 1999. In 2003 following another offense, the real culprit was found; it became clear that the evidence against Poghosyan had been fabricated by the police and he was freed. Two police officers were convicted of ill-treating the prisoners and fabricating evidence.
Australia Date of crime Defendant(s) Crime Location Sentence Time served Legally exoneratedDecember 30, 1921Colin Campbell RossRape and murder by strangulation of Alma TirtschkeLittle Collins Street, Melbourne, AustraliaDeathExecutedYes, posthumously exoneratedTwelve-year-old Nell Alma Tirtschke left home on an errand for her grandmother. Early the next morning, her body was found in Gun Alley. She had been raped and strangled. Colin Campbell Ross was convicted on the basis of several witnesses who testified that Ross confessed to them as well several strands of blonde hair on a blanket at Ross's house. In 1993, a former school teacher named Kevin Morgan began researching Ross's case. Morgan found a file in the Office of Public Prosecutions containing the original hair samples, which had been thought lost. In 1998, two independent scientific authorities—the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine and the forensics division of the Australian Federal Police—found that the two lots of hair did not come from the same person, thereby disproving with certainty the most damning piece of evidence presented at Ross's trial. Ross was pardoned on May 27, 2008, 86 years after his execution.Kevin Morgan (2012) Gun Alley: Murder, Lies and Failure of Justice (2nd ed., updated). Hardie Grant Books (Australia) Melbourne.December 20, 1959Darryl BeamishMurder of 22-year-old socialite Jillian MacPherson BrewerPerth, AustraliaDeath, commuted to life imprisonment15 years (including five years served after assaulting a young girl while on parole)YesBrewer was the great-granddaughter of industrialist and philanthropist Sir Macpherson Robertson and was heir to MacRobertson's chocolates. Brewer was killed by an intruder with a tomahawk and scissors in her beachside apartment. Beamish, a deaf and mute who had recently pleaded guilty to molesting four young girls and had a history of breaking and entering, lived near Brewer. He signed a confession, which he claimed he signed under duress. It was later determined that Brewer's murder was committed by Perth serial killer Eric Edgar Cooke, who confessed to the murder prior to his execution. Another man, John Button, was also convicted of a murder assumed to have been committed by Cooke.February 9, 1963John ButtonMurder of his 17-year-old girlfriend Rosemary AndersonFremantle, Western Australia10 years4 years, 9 monthsYesNineteen-year-old Button and his girlfriend Rosemary Anderson were celebrating his birthday at his parents' house. After an argument, Anderson decided to walk home. Button followed her in his car but she refused to get in and continued walking. Button stopped to smoke a cigarette before driving on. He found her lying injured and unconscious on the side of the road. She died later at the hospital.Button, J. Why Me Lord!. Perth: Digital Document Company. Button had a bad stutter and police interpreted this as being nervous due to the questions he was being asked. Button was refused access to his parents or a lawyer and was hit once by an interviewing police officer, before finally confessing to killing Anderson after 22 hours of interrogation. Damage to Button's car was also introduced at trial. He was charged with wilful murder, but served five years of a 10-year sentence after being convicted of a lesser charge of manslaughter.
In 1963, Perth serial killer, Eric Edgar Cooke, confessed to the murder of Anderson when arrested in 1963 and again before he was executed. At his appeal, Trevor Condron, the police officer who had examined John Button's car in 1963 told the appeals court that while the car was damaged, the damage was not consistent with hitting a person and that three weeks before Anderson's death, Button had reported to police another accident. This accident report had been known to police at the original trial but been discounted as irrelevant. The court also heard from Dr Neil Turner, who had treated Anderson. He claimed that her injuries were not consistent with Button's vehicle. The world's leading pedestrian accident expert, American William "Rusty" Haight, was flown to Australia and testified that experiments with a biomedical human-form dummy, a similar Simca to Button's and an EJ Holden similar to the one Cooke claimed he was driving when he hit Anderson, matched exactly Cooke's account and excluded the Simca.Beamish: action after 40 years The PostA Case of Science and Justice The Skeptic Spring 2002 pdf. Haight's crash tests with photographs. In February 2002, the Court of Criminal Appeal quashed Button's conviction..Murder He Wrote - Part 2 Australian Story August 5, 2002, Transcript
Button now spearheads the Western Australian Innocence Project, which aims to free the wrongfully convicted.September 14, 1964Alexander McLeod-LindsayAttempted murder of his wife, Pamela ParsonsSylvania, New South Wales.18 years9 yearsYesMcLeod-Lindsay returned from work to find his wife Pamela and son Bruce severely beaten. Police developed the theory that he had slipped away from the hotel, attacked his family and returned to work, unnoticed. Blood on McLeod-Lindsay's jacket was said to have been "impact splatter", and deposited during the attack.Bezjak, p. 124.
Both victims survived the attack. Pamela McLeod-Lindsay was adamant that her husband had not attacked her. She said that the attacker had an Australian accent. McLeod-Lindsay's accent was Scottish. McLeod-Lindsay was charged anyway with the attempted murder of his wife and son. The prosecution contended that Pamela McLeod-Lindsay was lying to protect the family's income. McLeod-Lindsay was found guilty.