Three threads run through today's roundup, and they're the same three threads that run through most wrongful convictions: evidence that was hidden, officials who weren't held accountable, and innocence organizations trying to do the work with too little money.
Louisiana is fighting a man it wrongly imprisoned for 42 years
Elvis Brooks, 69, of New Orleans, spent more than four decades in prison for a fatal bar shooting. His conviction was thrown out after prosecutors acknowledged they had failed to disclose key fingerprint evidence. Under Louisiana's compensation statute, that made him eligible for up to $480,000 — money lawmakers created specifically for people the state got wrong, in a state with one of the highest rates of overturned guilty verdicts in the country. According to reporting by ProPublica and Verite News, published Aug. 6 and picked up widely over the past week, Attorney General Liz Murrill's office is fighting the claim (Louisiana Illuminator, ProPublica).
This is the quiet second injury of a wrongful conviction. Getting out is not the end. Thirty-eight states and the District of Columbia now have wrongful-conviction compensation statutes, per the National Registry of Exonerations' August 2026 compensation data — but having a statute on the books is not the same as getting paid, and the Registry tracks how many exonerees actually seek and receive compensation precisely because the gap is so wide (Registry: Compensation).
If you follow our work on Richard Barge, the Brooks case will feel painfully familiar. Barge's case has already cleared the hardest hurdle — New Jersey's Conviction Review Unit has recommended his exoneration, with the sole eyewitness and the informants all recanting — and it now sits with the Attorney General's Office awaiting final action. In both states, the last obstacle isn't evidence. It's an attorney general's inbox.
Judicial discipline: a Queens judge ordered removed
The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct ordered Queens Civil Court Judge Joseph Kasper removed from the bench in a decision announced in early August — the first time the commission has imposed its most severe sanction on a Queens judge in nearly a decade. The commission found Kasper continued practicing law after taking office and allowed a longtime friend with a criminal record to handle cases under his name. His attorney has vowed to appeal to the state's highest court (Queens Daily Eagle, amNewYork, The City).
Removal remains rare. Earlier this year the same commission secured the removal of upstate Smithville Town Justice Jordon R. Lilley, after finding he gave landlords advice on an illegal eviction, secretly contacted a crime victim, and lied under oath (ABA Journal). Two removals in a year, in the largest court system in the country, tells you how high the bar is — and why complaints from ordinary litigants matter so much.
Police misconduct: paperwork is evidence, too
A Baltimore Police officer, Dequwan Houchins, 30, was indicted Aug. 7 on five counts of misconduct in office and four counts of falsifying public records, accused of fabricating traffic stops to avoid responding to real calls (Police1/Baltimore Sun). It's not a violent-force case, and that's the point: falsified reports are the raw material of wrongful convictions. Baltimore's State's Attorney's Public Trust & Police Integrity Unit brought a separate set of indictments in May against four officers on assault, false report, false statement, and misconduct charges (Baltimore State's Attorney). Every fabricated report that goes unchallenged becomes sworn testimony somewhere down the line.
In Chicago, CWB Chicago reported Aug. 12 that a federal judge has ordered a former top deputy in Kim Foxx's Cook County State's Attorney's Office to sit for a deposition about the office's decisions not to contest the vacating of certain convictions (CWB Chicago). We'll watch how that develops; conviction-review decisions being litigated in civil discovery is a trend worth tracking in both directions.
Innocence organizations under financial strain
The Midwest Innocence Project warned supporters in July that it was on the brink of closure after losing federal grants and funding in 2025, even after cutting staff by 25%. It has now stabilized and is trying to grow again (St. Louis Public Radio). Meanwhile, the New England Innocence Project is asking supporters to push for a veto override on New Hampshire's HB 1422, which would have removed the state's three-year deadline on new-trial motions based on new evidence or new science. Gov. Ayotte vetoed it (New England Innocence Project).
That deadline issue is not abstract. Forensic science that was accepted in 1998 — bite marks, hair comparison, arson indicators — has been discredited since. A three-year clock means the science can be debunked and the conviction still stands.
The data behind the pattern
- Official misconduct is not an outlier. The Registry's landmark racial-disparity report found that Black people made up 13.6% of the U.S. population but 53% of the roughly 3,200 exonerations in the Registry as of August 2022, and were about seven times more likely than white people to be falsely convicted of serious crimes — with official misconduct disproportionately present in their cases (U. Michigan Law / Registry).
- Capital cases are not immune. At least 202 people wrongly convicted and sentenced to death have been exonerated since 1973, per the Death Penalty Information Center — including Jermaine "Marlow" Wright, who received a Certificate of Innocence from a Delaware judge on July 23, 2026 (DPIC).
- Recantation cases are winnable. Philadelphia's Conviction Integrity Unit points to cases like Hollman's, where the conviction rested heavily on two witnesses who later recanted (Philadelphia DA). Recantation is treated with deep suspicion by courts — and yet it keeps proving out.
- The Innocence Project maintains a running dataset of DNA and non-DNA exonerations it has worked on, updated through April 2026, if you want to dig into causes case by case (Innocence Project data).
What you can do today
- New Jersey — Richard Barge. Call the New Jersey Attorney General's Office at (609) 292-4925, reference Richard Barge's case, mention Jennifer Davenport, then sign the petition.
- Louisiana. Contact the Louisiana Attorney General's Office and ask why the state is litigating against a compensation statute its own legislature passed. Innocence Project New Orleans works these cases locally.
- New York. The State Commission on Judicial Conduct accepts complaints from any member of the public through its website — it is the only body in New York that can discipline a sitting judge.
- Maryland. Under Maryland's police accountability framework, civilian-majority Administrative Charging Committees and police accountability boards review misconduct complaints in each county, including Baltimore. Complaints from residents are what start those files.
- New Hampshire. Ask your state senator and representative to override the HB 1422 veto; the New England Innocence Project has the details on its site.
- Kansas City/Midwest. The Midwest Innocence Project survived a funding cliff. Small recurring donations are what keep organizations like it from having to close a docket of living clients.
One closing note on Elvis Brooks: he is 69. He lost 42 years. The fight now is over money, which is the only remedy the law offers — and the state is fighting it anyway. That's worth a phone call.