Wrongly Convicted Database Record
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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 wasnt a similarity about them. To this day I cant 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." |
Defendant Aided By: |
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Compensation Awarded: |
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Was Perpetrator Identified? |
Yes |
Age When Imprisoned: |
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Age When Released: |
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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: |
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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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Comments About Case: |
Innocents Database Created and Maintained by Hans Sherrer innocents@forejustice.org