By Annie Han In 1983, Red Springs, North Carolina, 19-year-old Henry McCollum and 15-year-old Leon Brown were wrongfully arrested for the rape and murder of a young Sabrina Buie. With the teens’ intellectual disabilities (McCollum’s IQ being 51 and Brown’s at 49) and the police’s fabricated evidence, McCollum and Brown were extremely vulnerable to coercion, […]
Tag: wrongful convictions
Everything You Need to Know About Clemency in North Carolina
By Ben Finholt and Jamie Lau On April 8, 2021, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper signed Executive Order 208, establishing the Juvenile Sentence Review Board. This board is a new mechanism for executive clemency, which has been described as “provid[ing] the ‘fail-safe’ in our criminal justice system.”[1] Often serving as the last resort for someone […]
Op-ed: NC is Failing the Wrongfully Convicted; HB 877 Could Help
Duke Law Professors James E. Coleman Jr. and Jamie T. Lau brought much-needed attention in an op-ed published Monday to the fact that even after serving 25 years in prison, North Carolina can get away with compensating the wrongfully convicted as little as $45. The op-ed was published by the News & Observer. For nearly […]
Curtis Flowers, Attorney Talk Justice, Death Row, Innocence and Hope for a Better Legal System
By Annie Han Curtis Flowers recently joined The Wilson Center to discuss his experience of being tried six times for the same four murders he didn’t commit and serving 23 years on death row. He was joined by his North Carolina attorney, Henderson Hill. Flowers was first suspected of the fatal shooting of four people […]
Attorney for Man Granted Clemency: At Minimum, Legal System Should Clear Hurdles for Exonerated
By Ruthie Kesri Gov. Roy Cooper announced in late December he would be issuing pardons of innocence to five men he believed were innocent, serving time for crimes they did not commit. Cooper’s actions allow for those five men to apply to receive compensation from the state for each year they were wrongly imprisoned. In […]