Michigan Among Nation's Leaders For Exonerations: Report Says

MICHIGAN — Michigan was among the nation's leaders in overturning wrongful criminal convictions, according to a report that tracks wrongful imprisonments.

Michigan exonerated eleven criminal convictions, tying the state with California for third in 2021. Illinois led the nation with 38 and New York's 18 were the only two ahead of Michigan's eleven, according to the report.

Eight of Michigan's eleven exonerations were murder cases, and one other was a manslaughter conviction, the report said.

The National Registry of Exonerations tracked a total of 161 exonerations in 2021. The University of California, Irvine Newkirk Center for Science & Society, the University of Michigan Law School and the Michigan State University College of Law contributed to the project.

Most of the exonerations in 2021 were violent crimes, including 77 homicides, nine sex crimes and seven robberies. There were also 51 non-violent crimes exonerations, of which 21 were drug crimes and 15 were weapons possession or sale, the report said.

The report determined that there was misconduct by government officials in 102 cases, perjury or false accusations involved 107 cases, 47 cases were connected to mistaken witness identifications and 19 included false confessions.

The group plans to release another report later this year based on race and wrongful convictions. The group found in 2017 that African Americans made up the majority of those vindicated from wrongful convictions, despite only accounting for 13 percent of the nation's population.