Danny O'Brian

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Charge:	Murder and Arson
Sentence:	Death
Years Imprisoned:
Year Crime:
Year Convicted:
Year Cleared:	1976
U.S. State or Country of Crime:	Pennsylvania
County or Region of Crime:	Philadelphia
City of Crime:	Philadelphia
Result:	Judicially Exonerated Released
Summary of Case:	"Danny O'Brian was wrongly convicted of the arson of a Philadelphia tenement home that caused the death of five people. Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Johathan Neumann found evidence that 7 "eyewitnesses" had been beaten and otherwise coerced to falsely identify O'Brian as the man who threw a Molotov cocktail through the buildings window, when it was actually another man, Dave Patterson. Released after expose."
Conviction Caused By:	"False confession coerced by the police, and false eyewitness ID's by 7 people coerced by the police."
Innocence Proved By:	Reporter Jonathan Neumann was able to get all the witnesses to recant and he found police files documenting their torture of O'Brian to extract his confession - which was corroborated by scars on his chest.
Defendant Aided By:	Reporter Jonathan Neumann
Compensation Awarded:
Was Perpetrator Identified?
Age When Imprisoned:
Age When Released:
Sex:	Male
Skin/Ethnicity:
Information Source 1:	"The Thin Blue Lie, 2000, feature film"
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Go to Database Search Page

Go to Database Index Page

Danny O'Brian

Charge:

Murder and Arson

Sentence:

Death

Years Imprisoned:

Year Crime:

Year Convicted:

Year Cleared:

1976

U.S. State or Country of Crime:

Pennsylvania

County or Region of Crime:

Philadelphia

City of Crime:

Philadelphia

Result:

Judicially Exonerated Released

Summary of Case:

Conviction Caused By:

"False confession coerced by the police, and false eyewitness ID's by 7 people coerced by the police."

Innocence Proved By:

Reporter Jonathan Neumann was able to get all the witnesses to recant and he found police files documenting their torture of O'Brian to extract his confession - which was corroborated by scars on his chest.

Defendant Aided By:

Reporter Jonathan Neumann

Compensation Awarded:

Was Perpetrator Identified?

Age When Imprisoned:

Age When Released:

Sex:

Male

Skin/Ethnicity:

Information Source 1:

"The Thin Blue Lie, 2000, feature film"

Information Location 1:

Information Source 2:

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Book About Case:

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Book About Case (2):

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Movie About Case:

Comments About Case: