Daily Roundup — Sept. 7, 2026: An Exoneree Builds a Landing Place, a Judge Falls, and the Data Behind It All

There wasn't a flood of new wrongful-conviction news over the holiday weekend, so today's roundup covers a handful of real developments and then leans on the data — which, as always, tells the more important story.

Lead: An exonerated death-row survivor opens a home for other exonerated women

Marilyn Mulero, who spent 28 years in prison — including five on Illinois death row — for a crime she did not commit, has opened the Wrongful Conviction Trauma Center in Chicago's Austin neighborhood on the West Side. The residence is designed to catch exonerated women in the period right after release, when there is often no housing, no income, and no reentry infrastructure at all. Mulero was arrested at 21 in 1992 and sentenced to death at 23 without a trial; her sentence was later reduced to life before her conviction was overturned and she was fully exonerated. She was the first Latina sentenced to death in Illinois and remains the only woman ever exonerated from death row in Cook County history (Hoodline, Sept. 3, 2026).

That detail — sentenced to die without a trial — is worth sitting with. It is also a reminder that exoneration is not the end of a wrongful conviction. Compensation statutes vary wildly by state, many exonerees get less reentry support than people released on parole, and the trauma does not resolve on the courthouse steps. Mulero is filling a gap the system created and then refused to close.

Judicial discipline: Ohio and New York

The Supreme Court of Ohio has disciplined Sandusky County Common Pleas Judge Jon Ickes for multiple judicial conduct violations, including presiding over two cases in which he had what the court called a "glaring conflict of interest." In one, he failed to disclose his relationship to the arresting officer; in another, findings describe him texting from the bench during a trial, mocking a potential juror, and repeatedly referring to a child sexual abuse case by a vulgar nickname. The court imposed a two-year suspension, which Court News Ohio reported as removing him from office.

In New York, the state Commission on Judicial Conduct ordered the removal of Queens Civil Court Judge Joseph Kasper — the first time the commission's harshest sanction has hit a Queens judge in nearly a decade. The commission's 69-page report found Kasper continued running his law practice after taking the bench, failed to return client escrow money, and let a paralegal with a criminal record pose as an attorney and run the practice in his stead (Queens Daily Eagle).

Neither case involves a wrongful conviction directly. Both matter anyway: undisclosed conflicts and judges who treat proceedings as entertainment are exactly the conditions under which bad convictions survive appeal.

Police accountability, in small doses

A Gloversville, New York, police officer was taken into custody on Sept. 3 on misconduct and assault charges after the department referred allegations to State Police and the Fulton County District Attorney's Office (NEWS10 ABC). In Baltimore, an officer was indicted for allegedly keeping a department SUV for nine months and burning through nearly $2,000 in city gasoline (Baltimore Sun, Sept. 3, 2026). The Baltimore case is petty on its face — but every one of these indictments creates a Brady and Giglio disclosure obligation in the cases those officers touched, and defense counsel and conviction integrity units should be asking for those lists.

The data

• DNA is the smallest part of the picture. DNA testing has contributed to more than 600 exonerations since 1989, per the Innocence Project. The overwhelming majority of wrongful convictions have no testable biological evidence at all.
• Bad forensic testimony is a leading driver. Flawed forensic evidence was a factor in 52% of Innocence Project exonerations (Innocence Project).
• Death row. Since 1973, at least 203 people wrongly convicted and sentenced to death have been exonerated — roughly one exoneration for every eight executions. The Death Penalty Information Center identifies official misconduct and perjury or false accusation as the most common causes (DPIC).
• Where the numbers come from. The National Registry of Exonerations, a joint project of Michigan State University College of Law, UC-Irvine's Newkirk Center, and the University of Michigan Law School, tracks the frequency, causes, costs, and consequences of exonerations and publishes case-by-case narratives.

A case that illustrates the pattern precisely: in May, a Philadelphia judge vacated the convictions of Jermal Shuler, Marc Brittingham, and Rasheed Turner in a 1997 murder after 28 years in prison. The conviction rested on a single eyewitness, corroborated by a medical examiner's time-of-death estimate that independent pathologists later concluded was unreasonable — the victim likely died a full day after the eyewitness placed the men at the scene (Innocence Project). One witness plus one flawed expert equals 84 combined years lost.

That combination — a lone eyewitness, questionable corroboration, and years of institutional inertia — is also at the heart of the case of Richard Barge. New Jersey's Conviction Review Unit has already recommended his exoneration. The sole eyewitness has recanted, the informants have recanted, and new evidence points elsewhere. The file now sits with the New Jersey Attorney General's Office awaiting final action.

What you can do today

1. Richard Barge (New Jersey). Call the NJ Attorney General's Office at (609) 292-4925, reference Richard Barge's case, mention Jennifer Davenport, and sign the petition.
2. New York judicial misconduct. Complaints go to the NYS Commission on Judicial Conduct, which has offices in Albany, New York City, and Rochester; complaint forms and filing instructions are on the site.
3. Ohio judicial misconduct. Grievances against Ohio judges are handled through the Ohio Supreme Court's disciplinary system; decisions and process information are posted at Court News Ohio.
4. Baltimore. If you know of a conviction that turned on an indicted officer's testimony, contact the Baltimore City State's Attorney's Conviction Integrity Unit.
5. Find the right CIU anywhere in the country. The Registry maintains a state-by-state list of Conviction Integrity Units, split into units that have produced exonerations and those that have not — a useful accountability tool in itself.
6. Have a case? Review the Innocence Project's case submission guidelines before writing.

We publish this roundup daily. If we missed something in your state, tell us.