Ellen Reasonover

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Charge:	First Degree Murder
Sentence:	Life Imprisonment
Years Imprisoned:	17
Year Crime:	1983
Year Convicted:	1983
Year Cleared:	1999
U.S. State or Country of Crime:	Missouri
County or Region of Crime:	St. Louis
City of Crime:	St. Louis
Result:	Judicially Exonerated Released
Summary of Case:	"Ellen Reasonover was wrongly convicted in 1983 of the murder of a gas station attendant in St. Louis, Missouri, after calling the police to report and describe two men and the car they were driving who had left the scene of the murder. In August 1999 a federal judge reversed her conviction based on the voluminous evidence accumulated by Centurion Ministries that Ms. Reasonover was innocent, including that the prosecution concealed evidence it knew the testimony of two "jailhouse" snitches against her was false and that she was innocent. Filed federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of St. Louis and was awarded $7.5 million in compensation in 2004 for 16 years of wrongful imprisonment. Centurion Ministries, which aided Reasonover at no cost to her, paid about $400,000 to the Kansas City, Missouri law firm of Cheryl Pilate that was successful in getting Reasonover's conviction overturned."
Conviction Caused By:	"The prosecution suborned the perjured testimony of two "jailhouse" snitches in exchange for favors to them."
Innocence Proved By:	Discovery of audio tapes long concealed by the prosecution from Ms. Reasonover's attorneys for almost two decades.
Defendant Aided By:	"Centurion Ministries, which paid about $400,000 in legal fees to overturn Reasonover's conviction. One of the lawyers was Cheryl Pilate of Kansas City, MO."
Compensation Awarded:	"$7.5 million (City of St. Louis, 2004)"
Was Perpetrator Identified?
Age When Imprisoned:
Age When Released:
Sex:	Female
Skin/Ethnicity:	Black
Information Source 1:	"Railroaded: What Ellen Reasonover's lawyers learned while working to free her from a Missouri prison is that the unthinkable does happen, By Steve Weinberg, The American Lawyer, August 3, 2000"
Information Location 1:	http://www.truthinjustice.org/pilate.htm
Information Source 2:	Centurion Ministries website
Information Location 2:	http://www.centurionministries.org/cases.html
Information Source 3:	""1983 Murder Conviction Overturned," Athelia Knight (staff), The Washington Post, August 4, 1999."
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Ellen Reasonover

Charge:

First Degree Murder

Sentence:

Life Imprisonment

Years Imprisoned:

17

Year Crime:

1983

Year Convicted:

1983

Year Cleared:

1999

U.S. State or Country of Crime:

Missouri

County or Region of Crime:

St. Louis

City of Crime:

St. Louis

Result:

Judicially Exonerated Released

Summary of Case:

Conviction Caused By:

"The prosecution suborned the perjured testimony of two "jailhouse" snitches in exchange for favors to them."

Innocence Proved By:

Discovery of audio tapes long concealed by the prosecution from Ms. Reasonover's attorneys for almost two decades.

Defendant Aided By:

"Centurion Ministries, which paid about $400,000 in legal fees to overturn Reasonover's conviction. One of the lawyers was Cheryl Pilate of Kansas City, MO."

Compensation Awarded:

"$7.5 million (City of St. Louis, 2004)"

Was Perpetrator Identified?

Age When Imprisoned:

Age When Released:

Sex:

Female

Skin/Ethnicity:

Black

Information Source 1:

"Railroaded: What Ellen Reasonover's lawyers learned while working to free her from a Missouri prison is that the unthinkable does happen, By Steve Weinberg, The American Lawyer, August 3, 2000"

Information Location 1:

http://www.truthinjustice.org/pilate.htm

Information Source 2:

Centurion Ministries website

Information Location 2:

http://www.centurionministries.org/cases.html

Information Source 3:

""1983 Murder Conviction Overturned," Athelia Knight (staff), The Washington Post, August 4, 1999."

Information Location 3:

Information Source 4:

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Information Source 5:

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Book About Case:

Book Information:

Book About Case (2):

Book Information (2):

Movie About Case:

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