In 1986, a young woman at the University of Houston was raped. She described her assailant as a black man with a mustache wearing a plaid shirt. Based on this description, police stopped Anthony Robinsonas he was picking up a car for a friend from a university parking lot. Though he was wearing a plaid shirt, Robinson did not have a mustache and was cleanshaven. Still, minutes later, the victim identified him as the assailant in a one-on-one showup procedure. The prosecution relied mainly on the victim's cross-racial identification, and Robinson was convicted of sexual assault in 1987. Robinson pressed for forensic testingto prove his innocence, even offering to give police blood samples. He was paroled in 1997 and continued his efforts to prove his innocence. Once he had raised enough money, he sought DNA testingon the biological evidence collected from the victim. Test results proved that he could not have been the perpetrator. After the prosecution's tests confirmed the exulpatory results, Robinson's record was cleared. He was issued a pardon in 2000.

"Since the incident occurred, I've taken on the affectation of making sure I'm presentable when I go somewhere. It's kind of stifling for me 'cause I'm really a casual guy. But if you don't dress up in such a manner as to say, 'Okay, I'm a normal person,' the opportunity is there for them to say whatever they want: 'He fits the description.' Very rarely is somebody going to say: 'He was wearing a shirt, a tie, a pair of slacks, and some hard soled shoes.' That's not the description that they're going to use to grab you.... I keep records and tabs on where I was, what I was doing, and how long I was there. It's a small price to pay for my freedom. I keep general notations, little scraps of papers. If I go to the store, I'll keep a receipt or I'll make notations on my calendar. I just recently stopped keeping a logbook--so that's an improvement. My fear is if I stop, it might happen again.... Don't take this the wrong way, but it's kind of hard for a black man to live in Texas and not believe in God. That's the only way you can make rational sense of the irrational things that are happening around you." -- Anthony Robinson

In 1982, a young girl was abducted while walking to school in Nampa, Idaho. Her body was found days later in a ditch near the Snake River. Police focused their investigation on Charles Fain, who was new to the area. Many men, including Fain, were asked to provide hair samples to be tested against hairs found on the victim. Based on hair comparisons performed by the FBI, Fain was convicted of kidnapping, rape, and murder, and sentenced to death in 1983. Prosecutors also relied on testimony from two jailhouse snitches who claimed that Fain had confessed and provided detailed information about the crime. Fain maintained his innocence, claiming that he was at his father's house in Oregon on the day of the crime. Eighteen years later, Fain secured access to the evidence, and the hairs were subjected to mitochondrial DNA testing. He was excluded as the contributor of the hairs, and the court ordered his release in August 2001. Fain became the eleventh person freed from death row due to postconviction DNA testing.

"They took me back to a room. Lieutenant Patrick was there and he had a death warrant. He read it, cracked a few jokes, and that was about it.... They had to give us a copy of the procedure. We read it to see how it went. They strap you on the gurney. The spiritual advisor leaves. Then they put the needles in and walk behind this thing and start pushing some buttons. Wouldn't take more than about four minutes." -- Charles Irvin Fain

In 1978, a young white couple was abducted from a filling station and taken to an abandoned house in the Ford Heights section of Chicago. The young woman was raped repeatedly, and both victims were shot and killed. A man who lived nearby identified three young black men and a young black woman--Kenneth Adams, Willie Rainge, Dennis Williams, and Paula Gray--and placed them at the scene of the crime that night. Police questioned Gray, then seventeen years old, for two days. At grand jury proceedings, Gray testified that she witnessed the crime, and implicated yet another defendant, Verneal Jimerson, who was not tried until 1985. Gray recanted before trial and was charged along with Adams, Rainge, and Williams for the murders and the perjury. Based on the testimony of the eyewitness and a jailhouse snitch who claimed that he heard Rainge and Williams discussing the crime, all four defendants were convicted in 1979. Rainge and Williams won appeals in 1982. Prosecutors approached Gray, and she agreed to testify against the two men and Verneal Jimerson in exchange for her release. Based on her testimony and that of the original eyewitness, who now placed Jimerson at the scene as well, all three men were convicted. Williams and Jimerson were sent to death row. All four men continued to proclaim their innocence. In 1995, Jimerson's conviction was reversed, and prosecutors agreed to perform DNA testing on the evidence. Test results vindicated all four men. Law students investigating the case discovered a previously undisclosed police report indicating that another witness had come forward and identified four different men. Three of those men eventually confessed to the crime; the fourth had died. DNA testing corroborated their confessions. Gray's conviction was overturned in 2001, and she was pardoned in November 2002.

"They took away my family. I hurt so bad on the inside. I just don't trust no police. I got a gun pointed to my head. They took me to the scene of the crime. There was a lot of blood on the floor and I have not been right since then. I go home, I look under the bed, I look in my closet. What happened to us is wrong. I can't get this out of my mind. I feel like all the guys hate me for confessing. I don't want them to hate me. I love them. I just go through so much." - Paula Gray