Mary Berner

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Charge:	Forgery
Sentence:	Probation
Years Imprisoned:	0.1
Year Crime:	1928
Year Convicted:	1929
Year Cleared:	1929
U.S. State or Country of Crime:	Illinois
County or Region of Crime:	Cook
City of Crime:	Chicago
Result:	Judicially Exonerated Released
Summary of Case:	"Mary Berner was wrongly convicted in 1929 of forgery in Chicago, Illinois. Berner was arrested in December 1928 after being erroneously identified by at least eight people in responsible bank and department store positions as the woman who had cashed bad checks. In April 1929 the actual forger, Emma Lutz, was arrested and confessed. The same people who had identified Mary Berner, identified Lutz as the check forger. Berner's conviction was overturned."
Conviction Caused By:	False eyewitness identification
Innocence Proved By:	Capture and confession of the real forger
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Compensation Awarded:
Was Perpetrator Identified?	Yes
Age When Imprisoned:
Age When Released:
Sex:	Female
Skin/Ethnicity:	White
Information Source 1:	"Convicting the Innocent - Sixty-Five Actual Errors of Criminal Justice, by Edwin Borchard, Yale Univ Press, 1932"
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Mary Berner

Charge:

Forgery

Sentence:

Probation

Years Imprisoned:

0.1

Year Crime:

1928

Year Convicted:

1929

Year Cleared:

1929

U.S. State or Country of Crime:

Illinois

County or Region of Crime:

Cook

City of Crime:

Chicago

Result:

Judicially Exonerated Released

Summary of Case:

Conviction Caused By:

False eyewitness identification

Innocence Proved By:

Capture and confession of the real forger

Defendant Aided By:

Compensation Awarded:

Was Perpetrator Identified?

Yes

Age When Imprisoned:

Age When Released:

Sex:

Female

Skin/Ethnicity:

White

Information Source 1:

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

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