The National Registry of Exonerations has documented thousands of exonerations since 1989. Its 2022 report found that Black people make up about 13.6 percent of the US population but 53 percent of exonerations. Innocent Black people were about seven and a half times more likely than innocent white people to be convicted of murder.
Misconduct by police or prosecutors appears in many of these cases, including hidden evidence, coerced confessions and lying witnesses. Cross-racial eyewitness identification is especially error-prone. Unreliable forensic methods and inadequate public defense add to the risk.
The Innocence Project, founded in 1992, helped expose the problem through DNA testing. Exoneration often comes after decades in prison, and some people are freed only after death. Many states offer little or no compensation. More than 200 people have been exonerated after being sentenced to death.