Innocence Inquiry Commission offers appeal

GARY L. WRIGHT

gwright@charlotteobserver.com

More than 75 convicted felons in prisons across North Carolina have submitted claims of innocence to the state’s newly created Innocence Inquiry Commission in what they hope will lead to their exoneration and freedom.

The prisoners are behind bars on such charges as murder, rape, kidnapping, assault, drugs, larceny and embezzlement. To progress, their claims must be based on new evidence.

The eight-member commission, created with a law signed by Gov. Mike Easley in August, is the first such independent panel established in the nation to review claims of wrongful convictions. Its members will meet for the first time next month.

"We’ve got a good criminal justice system. The best," said former N.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverly Lake Jr., who was instrumental in the innocence commission’s establishment. "But we’re not perfect."

There have been several high-profile cases in North Carolina in recent years where convicted felons were exonerated.

The worst may have been that of Darryl Hunt, imprisoned 18 years until DNA proved that another man raped and killed a Winston-Salem newspaper copy editor. In another case, Alan Gell spent time on death row for a murder in Bertie County he didn’t commit. He was acquitted in 2004 after winning a new trial because prosecutors had withheld statements of people who saw the victim alive after Gell was jailed for vehicle theft. (more…)