Location

Defendant(s)

Date of Alleged Crime

Larry Youngblood was convicted of abducting 10-year-old David L. from a church carnival and repeatedly sodomizing him.  David said his assailant had a disfigured eye.  Youngblood fit this description and the traumatized child identified Youngblood in court as the perpetrator.  Youngblood lived alone, had a history of mental illness, and had had previous run-ins with the law.

Youngblood appealed his conviction because the state had collected semen samples left by the assailant both in and on the victim, but had failed to perform tests on the samples to determine the blood type of assailant.  It had also failed to refrigerate the samples so that tests could be performed at a later date.  Such tests might have completely exonerated Youngblood.  The Arizona Court of Appeals agreed with Youngblood that he had been denied due process and overturned his conviction.  The state appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court which reinstated Youngblood's conviction in 1988.  This decision was later recognized as an important precedent which limited the rights of criminal defendants.

In 1998, Youngblood was paroled from prison, but was reincarcerated the following year for failing to register his new address as required by sex offender laws.  However, by this time, advances in DNA testing technology allowed DNA tests to be performed on the degraded semen samples.  In 2000, Youngblood was exonerated of the crime after such tests were performed.  In 2001, the DNA profile obtained from the tests was found to match a Texas inmate, Walter Cruise, who was subsequently convicted of the crime.  (IP) (JD13) (Arizona v. Youngblood)  [8/09]

John Stoll was convicted of 17 counts of child molestation involving six children including his five-year-old son.  Two of Stoll's codefendants won their state appeal 15 years before he did.  His own appeal was denied in part because of a mistake his lawyer had made during the trial—failing to introduce a psychologist's finding that Stoll showed none of the telltale traits of a pedophile.

Of the six kids who had testified against Stoll then, five—now grown— recanted at a hearing.  Only his son Jed continued to insist that his father had molested him, though under questioning he could give no details.  Stoll's conviction was overturned after he served 20 years of a 40-year sentence.  His charges were dropped.  (JD02)  [6/05]

In 1983, a mentally unbalanced woman named Judy Johnson enrolled her two-year-old son, Matthew, in the McMartin Preschool.  She became obsessed with Matthew's rectal problems and began thinking they were a result of sexual abuse.  Soon Judy was making accusations against Ray Buckey, 28, the only male who worked at the school and who was the grandson of Virginia McMartin, 79, the school's founder.  Matthew denied abuse at first, but soon Judy was making more accusations against Ray based on what Matthew allegedly said.

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Wayne Cservak was convicted of molesting his girlfriend's 13-year-old-son.  The boy testified that Cservak had molested him night after night for almost two weeks. He said the sexual assaults happened regularly between 3 and 4 a.m. as he slept on the living room sofa.  One juror, Jim Thomas, thought the boy's testimony seemed contrived.  The boy stated he was sleeping on the sofa because he thought there were ghosts in his room. Then he said he was in the living room because his mother had rented out his room for a week to a cousin.  Testimony revealed that investigators had already caught the boy in one lie.  The boy's attitude also gave Thomas pause.  When asked why he didn't immediately report the allegations, the boy wisecracked, “Go figure.”  In contrast to the boy's testimony, Thomas felt that Cservak's testimony was real and believable.

However, despite believing Cservak innocent, Thomas was eventually browbeaten into convicting him after eight grueling hours of jury deliberation.  Thomas spoke at Cservak's sentencing hearing and his testimony helped convince the judge to give Cservak only 10 years out of a possible 100-year sentence.  Then Thomas spent thousands of dollars hiring an attorney to appeal Cservak's case.  During the appeal process, the boy recanted his story and told prosecutors that he had lied.  Apparently, the boy's mother and Cservak were talking about marrying and the boy did not like that idea.  Cservak was incarcerated for close to a year.  (JD01)  [10/08]

Kenneth Barnes was charged with sexual assault after the 8-year-old sister of his girlfriend claimed he had raped her.  In 1998, prior to trial, Barnes' mother (and court-appointed guardian) met with his attorney, Warren Brown.  Brown explained a prosecution offered plea agreement in which Barnes did not have to admit guilt for which he would receive no jail time, only probation.  It seemed like a good deal so Barnes took the plea.  However, the defense attorney never explained that Barnes would be branded a sex offender for life and have his name, picture, and address placed on the Maryland Sex Offender Registry.

In 2005, Barnes, who is mentally ill, was given a suspended sentenced for being days late in failing to register a change of address.  Months later he was jailed for a year and a half for maintaining a separate address.  In 2007, Lydia Fitzsimmons, the owner of a Tropicool Italian ice stand on Falls Road in Roland Park, found that Barnes lingered near her business before and after ordering an ice and then sat in his car watching customers.  Many of the customers were children.  Barnes may have been watching the young mothers, though no one really knows.  He denies having a prurient interest in children.  After being told by a customer that Barnes was on the sex-offender registry, Fitzsimmons called the police.  Since watching customers was not a crime, police could not do anything, but Fitzsimmons wrote a letter to Barnes' parole board asking them to incarcerate him.  Parole officials complied on the grounds that Barnes was in a “pre-contemplative state of re-offending.”

Later that year, the girl who made the rape allegation against Barnes was located and she admitted Barnes did not rape her.  The girl, named Marian, then age 20, said she accused Barnes because she was jealous of her older sister's closeness to him and wanted to break them up.  Those who support Barnes are seeking to get his conviction overturned so that it cannot be used as an excuse to incarcerate him at will for alleged non-crimes.  (City Paper) (2) (3) (4)  [12/09]

Guy Randolph was convicted of sexually assaulting a 6-year-old girl.  The girl did not initially recognize Randolph as her assailant.  However, a few minutes later, after talking to her aunt, she accused Randolph.  During a grand jury investigation, the girl described her assailant in ways that did not match Randolph, including his clothing and height.  There was also no physical evidence connecting Randolph to the assault.

At his lawyer's request, Randolph entered a Alford plea in which he did not have to admit guilt in exchange for a time served sentence of 4 months plus 10 years of probation.  Randolph later failed to show up for an alcohol counseling session, a condition of his probation.  A judge then incarcerated him for the remainder of the 10 years.  Following Randolph's release, he had to register as a sex offender.  In 2008, after prosecutors said the case against Randolph was so weak it should not have been pursued, a judge exonerated Randolph of all charges and declared him innocent.  (Boston Globe)  [6/08]

James Perry, a kindergarten teacher at Key Elementary School in Oak Park, was convicted of sexually assaulting two boys, ages 4 and 5 based on the boys' testimony.  The complaint began when the mother of the 5-year-old complained her son had been “tea-bagged” – slang for oral sex.  She also said her son had been the victim of a similar assault in Chicago.  Under questioning, the 5-year-old identified Perry and said he was only fondled, but said another boy, the 4-year-old, had been “tea-bagged.”  The 4-year-old initially denied being assaulted.

At trial, the boys claimed to have been pulled from a lunch line and assaulted in an empty Special Education classroom during lunchtime.  However, post-conviction interviews with school personnel indicate that the classroom always contained students who do not go out for lunch, and at least one teacher to watch over them. 

Because of the discrepancies, which were reported in the Detroit Free Press, Perry's conviction was overturned and he was retried in Mar. 2008.  The trial resulted in a mistrial with 11 jurors favoring acquittal and one juror holding out for a conviction.  Charges against Perry were dropped in Aug. 2008.  (DFP 2008)  [3/07]

Jerry Lynn Parker was convicted of sexually molesting three girls, K.B., age 10, H.R., age 11, and B.C., age 13.  He was sentenced to 195 1/2 years of imprisonment.  The girls said they were kidnapped at gunpoint from a gazebo in Gerald City Park and forced to walk to a woman's rest room about a block away where they were molested.  The girls' story contains numerous implausible or impossible details.  A deputy indicated that he did not believe the story.  Police undertook no further action on the girls' report until two weeks later when Parker became a suspect.  At trial, on cross examination, the Gerald Police Chief conceded his office received over 50 leads and the names of three suspects regarding the alleged assault but Parker was the only person ever questioned about it.

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Margaret Kelly Michaels was convicted in 1988 of 115 counts of sexual abuse against 20 children and sentenced to 47 years in prison.  After working seven months as a teacher at a Wee Care Day Nursery, her troubles began on April 30, 1985 when when a four-year-old boy who was a student of hers said, when a nurse put a thermometer in his rectum, “That's what my teacher does to me at nap time at school.” When asked what he meant, the boy replied, “Her takes my temperature.”  That one comment led to a criminal investigation and Michaels being charged with 131 counts of sexual abuse against 20 children.

During Michaels' trial, the judge questioned the children in his chambers while the jury watched on closed circuit TV.  He played ball with them and held them on his lap; sometimes he whispered in their ears and asked them to whisper answers back to him.  The children alleged Michaels raped and assaulted them with knives, spoons, and Lego blocks.  They also contended she licked peanut butter off of the their genitals, played a piano in the nude, and made them drink her urine. All of this abuse allegedly occurred over the many months Michaels worked at Wee Care and went unnoticed by other teachers, parents, or administrators.

Michaels' conviction was overturned on appeal in 1993.  The appeal judges singled out one witness's testimony as being inappropriate, because she was used to tell the jury to believe the children, when it was the jury's job to decide which witnesses to believe.  The judges were also critical about the initial interviews of the children, describing them as coercive, highly suggestive, and inept.  Michaels was subsequently freed on bail, and after a year and a half prosecutors dropped charges against her.  (Famous Trials) (CrimeMagazine) (State v. Michaels)  [4/10]

Robert McClendon was convicted of raping his 10-year-old daughter, Rahshea Knaff.  Knaff reported that she was abducted from her backyard by a man who tied a sock over her eyes.  The man then took her to a abandoned house nearby and raped her.  Afterwards the man took her to a convenience store and went inside, leaving her alone in the car.  While he was inside, Knaff jumped from the car and ran home. 

Knaff did not tell her mother about the assault until the next day, when her mother noticed she was acting and walking strangely.  According to her mother's testimony, Knaff identified her assailant as her biological father, Robert McClendon.  Knaff was taken to a hospital which confirmed she had been assaulted.  When asked who assaulted her, she said, “I think it was my dad but I may be wrong because my eyes were covered.”  Testimony indicated that Knaff had only seen her father once in her life before the assault.

McClendon was convicted due to his daughter's testimony and due to the state's allegation that he had failed a polygraph test.  Years later in 2008, DNA tests were performed which showed that another man committed the assault.  McClendon was subsequently exonerated.  (IP) (Columbus Dispatch)  [6/09]

In Feb. 1996, 18-year-old Sarah Jane Adams filed a police report, accusing James F. Love of orally raping her six, seven, eight years earlier.  After being charged with five rapes, Love filed a notice of alibi, stating that he was out of the United States during a large portion of the time period mentioned in his indictment.  His lawyers requested more specific dates and times of the alleged rapes, but the prosecutor repeatedly denied that any dates were available.

At Love's trial in June 1996, Adams testified that the first rape occurred “the week after Christmas 1988.”  She testified next three rapes occurred “at least once a month each month after the first time.”  Which would have been January, February, and March 1989.  Regarding the fifth rape she testified, “I can't remember when the last time was.”  Love told his attorneys he was in Mexico during the time period Adams said she was raped.  He obtained his mother's telephone records, which showed his mother had received collect calls from Mexico in late 1988 and early 1989.  The prosecutor argued that there was no proof the collect calls to Love's mother had been made by Love.  The jury convicted Love on four of the five rape charges.  Love was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences.  Love will be eligible for parole in 2036 when he is 85-years-old.

Since Love's conviction, he has assembled abundant evidence proving that he was in Mexico, before, during, and after the period in which the alleged rapes occurred.  In Nov. 2006, Love's conviction was overturned.  Love has written numerous articles on wrongfully convicted persons.  Many of those articles are posted on the Innocent Inmates of Ohio website.  (JD30 p5)  [9/07]

Nancy Smith and Joseph Allen were convicted of child abuse.  Smith, a Head Start school bus driver allegedly drove students to Allen's house where the students were molested.  Smith, a white woman, and Allen, a dark complexioned black, were an unlikely pair and denied ever having met each other.  The two were convicted on the testimony of child witnesses whose testimony changed over time, and on the testimony of adults who were facing unrelated criminal charges.  School attendance and bus records show the crimes to be impossible.  Smith was sentenced to 30 to 90 years in prison and ordered to pay the costs of prosecution.  Allen was sentenced to five consecutive life terms.  No physical evidence existed that any child was molested.  (Crime Magazine) (JD29 p3)  [2/07]

Jimmy “Spunk” Williams was convicted of the rape of a 12-year-old girl.  An attorney, appointed to represent him at a parole hearing in Dec. 2000, set up a meeting with the father of the victim.  Three months later the victim recanted her identification of Williams.  The victim originally claimed she was raped after her parents confronted her about sucker marks, which were on her neck.  The victim and a girlfriend testified they had been experimenting with sexual activity, and the girlfriend, who was also 12, had made the sucker marks.  At trial, doctors could not say that the victim was raped.  They could only say the victim was not a virgin.  The victim apparently still maintained she had been raped, but stated in court that she did not see her assailant's face.  Williams was released in 2001 and awarded $750,000 by the state of Ohio in 2005.  (AP News) (Dredmund)  [9/07]

Robert Hernandez was convicted in 2009 of child abuse charges against a 6-year-old girl and sentenced to 31 years in prison.  Hernandez lived with his girlfriend Tamara Denetclaw.  The alleged victim was Denetclaw's cousin whom the couple had been raising since the child was 2.  The couple raised the child because her mother lived on the streets and couldn't take care of her.  The mother was also legally married to a registered sex offender and there are two registered sex offenders on her side of the family.  When the child was 6 the mother decided she wanted her back.  Since Hernandez and Denetclaw did not have custody, they had to comply.  Many weeks later the mother brought back the child back saying she couldn't take care of her.

At an interview at the Kids Center, a child abuse organization, the child reportedly gave a taped statement that she was abused.  The Center sent the child home with Hernandez.  They later claimed they did not know what else to do.  The Center also told the child's mother what was said, but never mentioned Hernandez.  They later claimed that they did not tell her Hernandez was the abuser because they were afraid the mother would beat Hernandez up.

The Kids Center told the mother they taped a medical evaluation of her child.  They had her sign a paper saying they would not use their child's statement for teaching purposes and that the reason they taped her child was so that her child would not have to testify in court.  However, at Hernandez's trial, the Kids Center claimed that they did not tape the child; that it is not their policy to tape medical evaluations; and that they took notes.  But when asked to see the notes, they said they did not keep them; they shredded them.  The child testified for two days, but never mentioned Hernandez.

The medical examiner said he could not diagnose or confirm any abuse.  Hernandez gave a confession to the alleged charges which he contends was coerced.  A psychologist testified that Hernandez tested in the 95 percentile of being a person who says what people want to hear.  The psychologist was the only trial witness the defense was allowed to call.  The District Attorney, Mike Dugan, was one of the founders of the Kids Center.  Dugan was voted out of office in 2010 and the new DA fired the original prosecutor in the case.  (Source: Relative of Hernandez)  [2/11]

James Waller was convicted of raping a 12-year-old boy, identified as Jay S.  Jay initially described his assailant as a black man, 5 foot 8 inches tall and weighing 150 lbs.  He said a red bandanna concealed his assailant's face.  Later that day at a 7-Eleven, Jay heard his assailant's voice, and turned to see Waller.  Waller is nearly 6 foot 4 inches tall and was heavy.  Waller's family was the only black family living in Jay's apartment complex.  At trial, Waller presented witnesses stating he was home at the time of the assault, but Waller was convicted anyway.  Waller was paroled in 1993.  DNA tests exonerated him of the crime in 2007, making him the 12th person in Dallas County to be exonerated by DNA tests.  (NY Times)  [2/07]

Ricardo Rachell was convicted of sexually assaulting an 8-year-old boy.  The boy, lured by a bike-riding stranger promising him $10 for help cleaning up trash, was sexually assaulted in a vacant home south of downtown Houston.  The next day, the boy's mother saw Rachell riding a bike on Cullen Blvd.  She drove her son to the location and the boy subsequently identified Rachell as his assailant.  Testimony from the boy and one of his friends who saw the assailant served as the core of the case against Rachell.

During deliberations, jurors asked about the boys' testimony, sending written questions to the judge.  At least two wanted to know how the mother asked her son to identify his assailant and how the boy responded to her question.  The boy appeared to know Rachell not as a stranger, but from seeing him around his neighborhood as a man whose facial deformity, from of a shotgun blast years before, made him drool and appear “scary-looking.”  The two boys never mentioned that their assailant had an obvious facial deformity.

After Rachell was incarcerated, similar assaults occurred on at least three young boys lured by a man who promised them money in exchange for performing a task.  Rachell's defense attorneys said they were never told that biological evidence existed in the case, but were later made aware of it.  DNA tests of this evidence confirmed Rachell's innocence in 2008, leading to his release after more than 5 years of imprisonment.  Rachell became blind from glaucoma during his incarceration.  He was officially cleared in 2009.  (HC #1)  (HC #2)  [5/09]

Daniel L. Sanders was convicted of child molestation. In late May and early June of 1997, Sanders stayed with his former girlfriend, Patti Kelley, to spend time with his 14-year-old son, Gabe. Kelley also lived with her three-year-old son, Tyler, who was not Sanders' child. After Kelley accused Sanders of molesting Tyler, Sanders said she was retaliating against him for threatening to call Child Protective Services after Tyler had gotten got into Kelley's stash of methamphetamine. Kelley had told police that Sanders had masturbated and ejaculated in Tyler's face. During a preliminary hearing, Tyler stated, “My mom told me to say these things about [Sanders],” and he would not, or could not, identify Sanders in the courtroom. The judge found Tyler incompetent to testify.

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David Sanders, a Franciscan Brother and schoolteacher, was convicted in 2008 of molesting an altar boy more than 20 years earlier.  The victim who knew his molester as “Brother David,” picked Sanders out of a photo array and remembered him as the man who taught him First Communion rites at St. Vincent's parish.  The victim also said he visited his molester in Delaware.  Sanders 1980s address was in the address book of the victim's family.  At trial Sanders' defense argued that Sanders had never administered the victim's First Communion nor, as far as anyone could prove, had ever been to Delaware. Sanders had worked at a number of Milwaukee area parishes as a music teacher, but never at St. Vincent's.

Following Sanders' conviction, the victim's grandmother found a letter written by a different “Brother David,” named David Nickerson, which implicated that man in the assault.  When confronted, Nickerson admitted he molested the victim.  Sanders was subsequently exonerated after 5 months of imprisonment.  Authorities were debating whether to charge Nickerson, in part, because the victim is far from an ideal witness.  In 2008 the victim was 30 years old and was himself in prison for molesting a child.  (WIP) (MJS)  [11/08]

England (Stafford CC)