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Wrongly
Convicted Database
Record
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Years
Imprisoned:
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6 |
Charge: |
Second Degree Murder |
Sentence: |
15 - 20 yrs |
Year Convicted: |
1954 |
Year
Cleared:
|
1960 |
Location
of Trial:
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Michigan |
Result:
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Pardoned |
Summary
of Case:
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Wrongly accused and convicted of murdering his wife after he called police to report that she had committed suicide by shooting herself with a shotgun. He was convicted on the testimony of the prosecution's pathologist erroroneous conclusion that Pecho's wife didn't commit suicide. In 1950 he was pardoned by Michigan Mennen Williams and freed after 6 years imprisonment when his wife's ring fingerprint was found on the trigger guard of the shotgun. |
Conviction
Caused By:
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Prosecutorial misconduct of withholding exculpatory evidence from the defense and erroneous analysis by the prosecutions pathologist. |
Innocence
Proved By:
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Pardoned in 1950 by Michigan Governor Mennen Williams when the fingerprint of his wife's ring finger was found on the trigger guard of the shotgun that was used to kill her.
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Defendant
Aided By:
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Compensation Awarded: |
No |
Was Perpetrator Found? |
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Age
When Imprisoned:
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Age
When Released:
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Information Source 1: |
“Miscarriages of Justice in Potentially Capital Cases,” Hugo Adam Bedau & Michael L. Radelet, Stanford Law Review, November, 1987, Vol. 40, p. 151. |
Information
Location 1:
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Information
Source 2:
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The Innocents, Edward Radin,William Morrow & Co., 1964, p. 243 |
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Location 2:
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Source 3:
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Location 3:
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Source 4:
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Location 4:
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Information
Source 5:
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Information
Location 5:
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Ethnicity/Skin:
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White |
Book
About
Case:
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Book
Information:
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Movie About Case: |
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Comments About Case: |
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Innocents Database Created and Maintained by Hans Sherrer innocents@forejustice.org