Ineffective counsel

Taron Hill was convicted in 2006 of the September 25, 2004 shooting deaths of Robin Battie and Tinesha Lewis in Camden, New Jersey, and sentenced to 60 years without parole. The case against him rested on a single-photo eyewitness identification and two jailhouse informants who later recanted — no forensic evidence ever tied him to the crime, and the murder weapon was never found. New Jersey's Conviction Review Unit, in its first-ever exoneration, found clear and convincing evidence he should not have been convicted. His conviction was vacated July 9, 2021, after more than 16 years in prison.

Kevin Baker maintained an alibi that he was with his girlfriend the night of the shooting, but his trial attorney never called her as a witness. The alibi was later corroborated during a post-conviction reinvestigation that also uncovered contradicting forensic evidence.

Shortly before 6 a.m. on January 28, 1995, an unidentified caller reported finding two bodies in a pool of blood in Camden's Roosevelt Manor housing complex. Rodney Turner, 35, and Margaret Wilson, 40, had both been shot in the head. Five days later, based on street rumor, police arrested Sean Washington and Kevin Baker, then both 23, largely on the word of a single eyewitness, Denise Rand, who was high on crack cocaine at the time of the shooting and gave inconsistent, wavering testimony at trial. Washington and Baker were convicted after a two-day trial in August 1996 and sentenced to 60 years to life. Washington had in fact called 911 himself that morning after discovering the bodies while walking to a nearby pay phone, fearing one victim was his nephew — but that call went unidentified for 18 years. Beginning in 2011, the Last Resort Exoneration Project at Seton Hall Law School uncovered the 911 recording and new ballistics and forensic analysis showing both victims were shot at close range while on the ground, directly contradicting Rand's account of them being shot while running. In December 2019, the New Jersey Appellate Division unanimously vacated both convictions, finding the new evidence "powerfully undermines" Rand's testimony. Camden County prosecutors declined to retry the case, and Washington and Baker were released on February 11, 2020, after nearly 25 years in prison.

Trial counsel wrongly believed defense expert funding was capped at $1,000 — an older cap that had actually been replaced by a statute allowing "any expenses reasonably incurred" with judicial approval — so he hired a firearms expert he knew was unqualified rather than seeking proper funding for a qualified one.

Jill Halliburton Su was found dead in her Davie, Florida home on September 8, 2014, bound and stabbed in a bathtub. Nine days later, a DNA database search returned the name of Dayonte Resiles, then twenty years old, with no known connection to the victim or her family. He was arrested the following day. The State's case rested on DNA. Prosecutors told jurors that Mr. Resiles' DNA was recovered from items at the scene and that this established he was the killer. The defense argued throughout that a DNA association does not establish who committed a homicide, when the DNA was deposited, or how it got there. His first trial ended in a mistrial in December 2021 under extraordinary circumstances: the jury returned a manslaughter verdict, and when jurors were polled, one said she did not agree with it. Following the mistrial, a juror stated that some jurors had been unwilling to convict on the greater charge because of his race. A retrial three months later produced a first-degree murder conviction. The Fourth District Court of Appeal affirmed in a one-word per curiam opinion in January 2025. Mr. Resiles has maintained his innocence for twelve years, including in a letter to the court and in open court at his own sentencing. Xonorate is supporting his request for independent post-conviction review.