Case Spotlights
Over the last 20 years, we have achieved a series of life-changing exonerations, reuniting innocent people with their families after decades lost in prison. Each story not only represents a triumph for our communities, but also provides evidence against the myths we have been sold about the criminal legal system keeping us safe and about whom we should fear.
Edward Wright
41 Years Wrongfully Incarcerated
Exonerated 2025
“It was just like getting punched in the face.” That’s how Edward Wright described being wrongfully convicted of the 1984 murder of his friend, Penny Anderson, in her Massachusetts apartment and sentenced to die in prison. For more than forty years, Mr. Wright pursued every legal avenue available to challenge his wrongful conviction, even as prosecutors intentionally hid crucial evidence supporting his innocence from him and from the courts.
Thomas Rosa
34 Years Wrongfully Incarcerated
Exonerated 2026
Thomas Rosa, Jr. was wrongfully convicted and spent 34 years in prison for the 1985 murder of Gwendolyn Taylor before his convictions were overturned based on new DNA evidence and advances in eyewitness identification science. His case reveals how unreliable forensic evidence can devastate lives and the resistance we face to revisiting a conviction, even when there is evidence that it is unjust.
Jason Carroll
Wrongfully Incarcerated for 37+ Years
Currently imprisoned and fighting for release
Arrested at 19 years old, Jason Carroll has been incarcerated since 1989, more than three and a half decades, for the murder of Sharon Johnson in Bedford, New Hampshire—a murder he did not commit. The only evidence “linking” him to the crime was his coerced confession, a story Jason provided at the insistence of his own mother, who was a Bedford police officer.
Nancy Wagner
30 Years Wrongfully Incarcerated
Wrongful Conviction Overturned in 2023
At the age of 21, Nancy Wagner (previously McGeoghean) was wrongfully convicted of murdering her beloved 23-month-old daughter, Sarah. She spent 30 years in prison before science revealed that Sarah had, in fact, died in a tragic accident while sleeping in her car seat at home. Nancy’s case is similar to those of many other women wrongfully convicted of harming their children, cases where no crime actually occurred.
Dennis Maher
19 Years Wrongfully Incarcerated
Exonerated 2003
One of the very first exonerations we celebrated was with Dennis Maher in 2003. Dennis, then a sergeant in the United States Army, was wrongfully convicted in 1984 of multiple sexual assaults. No biological evidence linked him to the crimes, so the prosecution relied on multiple eyewitness identifications, all of which were later proven mistaken based on DNA evidence.
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