A Non-DNA Exoneration

The Associated Press reports that an inmate who served 20 years of a life sentence was exonerated when the complainants, who had been six and four at the time they testified, revealed that they had been coached by a relative to offer false testimony. http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/3892857/detail.html

Another blog reports that the case was prosecuted by the now-governor of North Carolina--although prosecutorial misconduct does not seem to loom large in the case.

As is so often the case, there is an article on SSRN offering insight into the general phenomenon: See Schuman, John Philippe, Bala, Nicholas C. and Lee, Kang, "Developmentally Appropriate Questions for Child Witnesses" Queen's Law Journal, Vol. 25, Pp. 251-304, 1999 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=198969

And here's an alleged exonerating DNA test of an Israeli inmate of a rape charge; he had previously pleaded guilty to an earlier rape.

Jack Chin