Herbert T. Andrews

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Charge:	Forgery
Sentence:	14 months
Years Imprisoned:	0.1
Year Crime:	1913
Year Convicted:	1914
Year Cleared:	1914
U.S. State or Country of Crime:	Massachusetts
County or Region of Crime:	Suffolk
City of Crime:	Boston
Result:	Judicially Exonerated Released
Summary of Case:	"Herbert T. Andrews was wrongly convicted in 1914 of 17 separate counts of forgery and passing bad checks in Boston, Massachusetts based on the eyewitness identification and testimony of 17 witnesses, which was buttressed by the expert testimony of a handwriting expert. After the bad checks written in the same handwriting continued to be passed after Herbert Andrews imprisonment, the actual culprit was identified and arrested. Andrews was released and the actual perpetrator was convicted and imprisoned. After the actual perpetrator was identified, Andrews prosecutor said that the two men "were as dissimilar in appearance as could be. There was several inches difference in height and there wasn’t a similarity about them. To this day I can’t understand the positiveness of those [identification] witnesses." ('Stanley Z. Fisher, Convictions of Innocent Persons in Massachusetts: An Overview,” 12 Boston Univ. Public Interest L.J. 1, 13-14 (2002))."
Conviction Caused By:	Erroneous eyewitness testimony of 17 witnesses and the erroneous expert testimony of a handwriting expert.
Innocence Proved By:	"Actual perpetrator was identified after Herbert Andrews was imprisoned, and he confessed to the crimes."
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Compensation Awarded:
Was Perpetrator Identified?	Yes
Age When Imprisoned:
Age When Released:
Sex:	Male
Skin/Ethnicity:	White
Information Source 1:	"Convicting the Innocent - Sixty-Five Actual Errors of Criminal Justice, by Edwin Borchard, Yale Univ Press, 1932, p. 1-6"
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Information Source 2:	"Stanley Z. Fisher, Convictions of Innocent Persons in Massachusetts: An Overview,” 12 Boston Univ. Public Interest L.J. 1, 13-14 (2002)."
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Book About Case:	"Convicting the Innocent - Sixty-Five Actual Errors of Criminal Justice, by Edwin Borchard, Yale Univ Press, 1932, p. 1-6"
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Herbert T. Andrews

Charge:

Forgery

Sentence:

14 months

Years Imprisoned:

0.1

Year Crime:

1913

Year Convicted:

1914

Year Cleared:

1914

U.S. State or Country of Crime:

Massachusetts

County or Region of Crime:

Suffolk

City of Crime:

Boston

Result:

Judicially Exonerated Released

Summary of Case:

Conviction Caused By:

Erroneous eyewitness testimony of 17 witnesses and the erroneous expert testimony of a handwriting expert.

Innocence Proved By:

"Actual perpetrator was identified after Herbert Andrews was imprisoned, and he confessed to the crimes."

Defendant Aided By:

Compensation Awarded:

Was Perpetrator Identified?

Yes

Age When Imprisoned:

Age When Released:

Sex:

Male

Skin/Ethnicity:

White

Information Source 1:

"Convicting the Innocent - Sixty-Five Actual Errors of Criminal Justice, by Edwin Borchard, Yale Univ Press, 1932, p. 1-6"

Information Location 1:

Information Source 2:

"Stanley Z. Fisher, Convictions of Innocent Persons in Massachusetts: An Overview,” 12 Boston Univ. Public Interest L.J. 1, 13-14 (2002)."

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Book About Case:

"Convicting the Innocent - Sixty-Five Actual Errors of Criminal Justice, by Edwin Borchard, Yale Univ Press, 1932, p. 1-6"

Book Information:

Book About Case (2):

Book Information (2):

Movie About Case:

Comments About Case: