Wrongly Convicted Database Record

 

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Collis English

 

Charge:

Murder

Sentence:

Life Imprisonment

Years Imprisoned:

4

Year Crime:

1948

Year Convicted:

1951

Year Cleared:

1952

U.S. State or Country of Crime:

New Jersey

County or Region of Crime:

Mercer

City of Crime:

Trenton

Result:

Judicially Exonerated Posthumously - Died in prison

Summary of Case:

"Collis English, John McKenzie, James Thorpe, Horace Wilson, and McKinley Forrest were codefendants wrongly convicted in 1948 of the murder and robbery of 73-year-old William Horner in Trenton, New Jersey on January 27, 1948. The five co-defendants, along with co-defendant Ralph Cooper, were dubbed by the media as the "Trenton Six." Five of the six defendants signed separate and inconsistent confessions, that they later recanted as false and obtained under the duress of police coercion. Only Wilson didn't sign a confession. Horner was white, and the press whipped up public hysteria against the six defendants who were black. Although all six defendants had solid alibis the all-white jury convicted them of murder, and the judge sentenced them all to death. In 1949 the New Jersey Supreme Court reversed the convictions of all six because the jury failed to specify what degree of murder the men were guilty of, and in sentencing the men to death the trial judge had simply assumed first-degree murder. A retrial ended in a mistrial when the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict for any of the six defendants. Four of the defendants were acquitted on June 14, 1951 after a third trial, with only English and Cooper again convicted of murder. They jury recommended mercy and the judge sentenced them to life in prison. On appeal the convictions of English and Cooper were vacated in November 1952 and a new trial was ordered. English died of a heart attack a month later on December 31, 1952, at the age of 27. To avoid a fourth trial, Cooper agreed to plead guilty to murder in exchange for time served, and he was released on parole in 1954."

Conviction Caused By:

False confessions by five of the six codefendants extracted under police pressure and threats. All the confessons were inconsistent with one another.

Innocence Proved By:

English died in prison a month after conviction was vacated by New Jersey Supreme Court.

Defendant Aided By:

Compensation Awarded:

Was Perpetrator Identified?

Age When Imprisoned:

23

Age When Released:

27

Sex:

Male

Skin/Ethnicity:

Black

Information Source 1:

"“In Spite of Innocence: Erroneous Convictions in Capital Cases,” Michael L Radelet, Hugo Adam Bedau, and Constance E. Putnam, Northeastern University Press, Boston, 1992 p. 297."

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Information Source 2:

"“Miscarriages of Justice in Potentially Capital Cases,” Hugo Adam Bedau & Michael L. Radelet, Stanford Law Review, November, 1987, Vol. 40, p. 107+."

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Book About Case:

"The Story of the Trenton Six, by Elwood M. Dean (New Century Publishers, 1949)"

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Innocents Database Created and Maintained by Hans Sherrer innocents@forejustice.org

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