For the Innocent

In 1998, a retired NYPD officer was shot and killed inside an illegal gambling parlor. Angry cops wanted speedy justice for one of their own, and an overzealous, incautious investigation ensued. A witness to the...

At just 17 years old, Bruce Lisker was branded a murderer after being accused and convicted of the violent killing of his mother. He would go on to spend the next 26 years of his life in prison, until a federal judge...

In 1983, Bruce Lisker’s mother was violently attacked in their family home. After responding to his frantic 911 call, police quickly drew assumptions from the chaotic crime scene. Dorka Lisker was bludgeoned, stabbed...

To this day, some still believe Amanda Knox is guilty of the horrific murder of Meredith Kercher in 2007. However, this belief appears to stem entirely from the wildly sensational media coverage surrounding her supposed...

Suffering is part of the human experience, but most of us are granted the dignity of processing our pain and healing in private. For Amanda Knox, that has never been an option. As she herself puts it, “The worst...

Hosted by Michael Semanchik, For the Innocent exposes the shocking reality of wrongful convictions through raw, first-person stories from the exonerated. Season 3 returns September 9th featuring powerful accounts from...

At the moment of conviction, the incentive to safeguard evidence diminishes in the eyes of the Criminal Justice System. That’s why it is critically important to act quickly to ensure evidence remains available for...

Luis Vargas was wrongfully convicted after three separate witnesses misidentified him as the “Teardrop Rapist.” Sixteen years later, DNA linked to the uncaught serial sex offender was found in one of the victim’s...

In the first 325 DNA exonerations, false identification accounted for 72% of the wrongful convictions. But how is that possible? The simplest explanation is that we are not as good at identifying each other as we think...

Guy Miles was wrongfully convicted after being misidentified by an eyewitness during a robbery investigation in Orange County, California. Although he had once been involved in gangs during his youth, he left that life...

Imagine being in prison for decades. You’ve been fighting your appeal for many years. Your lawyer believes you’ll get a new trial but there is no guarantee that you’ll win your freedom. Suddenly, the prosecution offers...

On November 20th 1999, Angela Garcia’s home caught on fire. Surprised and crawling in the dark, she was not able to find her children before the blaze forced her to jump out of a 2nd floor window. She ran to get help...

Believe it or not, there are many reasons to plead guilty when you’re not. ----- Plea deals are necessary to fight crime. Without them, our criminal justice system would grind to a halt, and the bad guys would run free...

Marilyn Mulero was wrongfully suspected of a Chicago gang murder in 1992. Naive to the criminal justice system, she was frightened into signing a statement by threats of the death penalty from law enforcement. Failing...

When forensic evidence gets it wrong, how do we free the innocent? ----- In our history of criminal prosecutions, some types of evidence ended up being unreliable. Forensic sciences like bite-mark identification, arson...