Charles Bernstein (bank robbery conviction)

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Charge:	Bank Robbery (incld. Armed)
Sentence:	40 years
Years Imprisoned:	9
Year Crime:
Year Convicted:	1919
Year Cleared:	1928
U.S. State or Country of Crime:	Minnesota
County or Region of Crime:	Hennepin
City of Crime:	Hopkins
Result:	Judicially Exonerated Released
Summary of Case:	"Charles Bernstein was wrongly convicted of robbing a bank in Hopkins, Minnesota in 1919 based on the erroneous identification of him as the robber by two witnesses after being shown a picture of him as a teenager - not as an adult. Two robbery witnesses said he was not the robber and two hotel detectives and the hotel clerk testified he was 20 miles away in a St. Paul hotel lobby at the time of the robbery. In 1928 a prosecutor became convinced of Bernstein's innocence and his conviction was overturned. Five years later he was again mistaken as the perpetrator of a major crime and convicted of committing a murder in Washington DC and sentenced to death, even though six witnesses testified he was over two hundred miles away in New York at the time of the murder. In May 1935 he was minutes away from being executed when President Roosevelt commuted his sentence to life in prison. In June1940 the President commuted his sentence to time served, and in April 1945 President Truman pardoned Charles Bernstein. He spent a total of 17 years wrongly imprisoned for the two crimes he didn't commit. Bernstein was also known as Charles Harris and Charles Blum."
Conviction Caused By:	False eyewitness identification by two people
Innocence Proved By:	Conviction set aside and indictment dismissed.
Defendant Aided By:
Compensation Awarded:	No
Was Perpetrator Identified?
Age When Imprisoned:
Age When Released:
Sex:	Male
Skin/Ethnicity:	White
Information Source 1:	"In Spite of Innocence, Radelet, Bedau and Putnam, Northeastern Univ. Press, 1996, p. 286"
Information Location 1:
Information Source 2:	"The Innocents, Edward Radin,William Morrow & Co., 1964, p. 247-8."
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Charles Bernstein (bank robbery conviction)

Charge:

Bank Robbery (incld. Armed)

Sentence:

40 years

Years Imprisoned:

9

Year Crime:

Year Convicted:

1919

Year Cleared:

1928

U.S. State or Country of Crime:

Minnesota

County or Region of Crime:

Hennepin

City of Crime:

Hopkins

Result:

Judicially Exonerated Released

Summary of Case:

Conviction Caused By:

False eyewitness identification by two people

Innocence Proved By:

Conviction set aside and indictment dismissed.

Defendant Aided By:

Compensation Awarded:

No

Was Perpetrator Identified?

Age When Imprisoned:

Age When Released:

Sex:

Male

Skin/Ethnicity:

White

Information Source 1:

"In Spite of Innocence, Radelet, Bedau and Putnam, Northeastern Univ. Press, 1996, p. 286"

Information Location 1:

Information Source 2:

"The Innocents, Edward Radin,William Morrow & Co., 1964, p. 247-8."

Information Location 2:

Information Source 3:

Information Location 3:

Information Source 4:

Information Location 4:

Information Source 5:

Information Location 5:

Book About Case:

Book Information:

Book About Case (2):

Book Information (2):

Movie About Case:

Comments About Case: