Case Dismissed Three Years After Man's Release From 16 Years Of Wrongful Imprisonment

By Hans Sherrer

Summary: Nineteen years after being wrongly convicted of murder, Dwight Love finally has charges dismissed.

After 16 years in prison insisting he was innocent, Dwight Love was freed in 1998 after a judge in Detroit, Michigan threw out his first-degree murder conviction. His exoneration was due to a detective who came forward and disclosed that the police had concealed evidence during his prosecution that would have exonerated him of the September 1981 shooting of James Connelly.

In spite of an absence of evidence, the prosecutor, however, delayed in bringing him to trial. After several motions by Mr. Love's lawyers for a speedy trial, Wayne County Circuit Judge Daphne Means rebuffed the prosecutor's stall tactics by dismissing the charges against Mr. Love in February 2001. The removal of that cloud ended the prosecutor's vindictiveness in prolonging Dwight Love's almost 20-year nightmare.

Source: USA Today