Top 10 Innocent Kids Sentenced To Life In Prison - *18 yrs or younger*
There was a time in our justice system where racial profiling,
discriminatory jury members and DNA testing did not exist.
Some could argue that a lot of people are serving time behind bars for crimes that they
haven’t committed.
Unfortunately, there are even children and teenagers who are convicted of serious crimes
and are forced to spend their lives in prison even though they are innocent.
So, let’s take a look at the top 10 innocent kids sentenced to life in prison.
Starting off this unfair list in at number 10 with Santiago Ventura Morales.
In 1986, he was convicted of murdering a 19-year-old man after they had an argument.
He was sentenced to ten years to life in prison but maintained his innocence despite being
offered plea deals.
He made several appeals after his conviction but they were all denied.
However, due to a lack of an appropriate interpreter and other deficiencies in the trial, it led
to his conviction being overturned and it was determined that a different person was
responsible for the murder.
He spent about 5 years in prison as an innocent man but he had plans to become a lawyer someday
so that he could help people in similar situations.
Timothy Masters comes in at number 9.
On February 11, 1987, the body of Peggy Hettrick was found in a field and she had been stabbed
in the back and sexually mutilated. 15-year-old Timothy Masters lived in a trailer that was
only 100 feet away from her body.
The police questioned him and searched his room and found several thousand pages of violent
journal entries and drawings in his closet and a collection of knives.
Even though no physical evidence linked him to the crime, he was charged and convicted
of the murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. 12 years later, his sentence
was later removed when DNA evidence proved his innocence.
Timothy Masters was given $5.9 million dollars in order to settle the wrongful conviction
lawsuit.
The wrongfully convicted Marvin Anderson comes in at number 8.
Marvin Anderson was only 18 years old when he was convicted of robbery, sodomy, abduction
and rape.
An all white jury convicted him on all counts and he was sentenced to 210 years in prison.
However, in 1988 another man came forward and admitted that he had committed the crime.
He fully confessed under oath and in open court but the judge who presided over the
original trial refused to drop the charged on Marvin Anderson.
Marvin spent a total of 15 years in prison but it took another four years to become fully
exonerated.
And now in at number 7 is Dennis Brown.
He was convicted of a rape back in 1984 when he was only 17 years old after the victim
picked him out of a lineup.
Dennis Brown claimed that the police had threatened him at knife point, forcing him to confess
to the charges.
The jury found him guilty and he was charged with aggravated rape, burglary and aggravated
crimes against nature which gave him a sentence of life imprisonment.
Dennis Brown contacted the Innocence Project and DNA tests concluded that he was not the
rapist.
So, in 2004, after serving 19 years in prison for a crime he never committed, he was released.
The Dixmoor 5 come onto this list in at number 6.
The Dixmoor 5 are five African American men who were falsely convicted of the rape and
murder of 14-year-old Cateresa Matthews.
At the time of the arrest, the five men were between the ages of 14 and 16.
During the intense and long interviews, three of them gave false confessions because they
were coerced and physically abused and threatened during the interrogations.
Each of them received at least 80 years in prison but in 2011, DNA tests concluded that
the semen on the victim belonged to another man.
All of the charges were dropped after they have spent 20 years in prison and they became
free men in 2011.
They reached a wrongful conviction settlement of $40 million dollars which is the largest
settlement in Illinois’ history.
Moving on to Thomas Haynesworth, he makes it in at number 5.
He was arrested at the age of 18 after a woman identified him as her attacker.
He was convicted of four violent rapes and sentenced to a total of 84 years in prison.
Thomas Haynesworth maintained his innocence throughout his time spent in prison and based
on new DNA evidence, the real perpetrator was believed to have been his neighbor who
closely resembles him.
After the DNA testing, he was exonerated and released from prison in March 2011 after spending
27 years in prison.
So for this wrongful conviction, he was given a lump sum of $1 million dollars, two types
of pensions and a tuition at a community college.
Christopher Abernathy takes the number 4 spot.
On October 5th, 1984 the body of a 15-year-old girl was found behind a shopping mall, she
had been raped and stabbed to death.
More than a year after the crime, police brought in 18-year-old Christopher Abernathy for questioning.
After 40 hours of interrogation, he had signed a confession which stated that he attempted
to rape her and then accidentally stabbed her with a pocket knife.
Christopher was a high school dropout and he had a learning disability, so the police
used this and coerced him into making a false confession.
He was eventually sentenced to life in prison because he was 17 at the time of the murder,
the jury initially wanted him to get the death penalty.
After the Innocence Project picked up his case, new DNA evidence exonerated him of all
the charges and he was released after spending 28 years behind bars as an innocent person.
The West Memphis Three ironically make it into number 3.
This was a murder case that shocked the world.
Three little boys were found tied up with their own shoelaces, sexually mutilated, beaten
and left for dead.
The local authorities arrested 18-year-old Damien Echols, 16-year-old Jason Baldwin and
17-year-old Jessie Misskelley because they were known around town for wearing black and
listening to heavy metal.
All three of these teenagers were convicted of the murders and sentenced to serve life
in prison except for Damien Echols who was sentenced to death.
This is a highly controversial case because all of the evidence was circumstantial and
there was actually no DNA from the suspects found on the children or anywhere at the crime
scene so a lot of people believe that they are actually innocent.
The Scottsboro Boys are in at number 2.
They were nine African American teenagers who were accused of raping two White women
on a train back in 1931.
These were nine unemployed young men who were illegally riding the train.
They were held in Alabama on minor charges and they convinced these two women into saying
that these young boys had raped them.
Within two weeks of this false accusation, the Scottsboro boys were convicted and eight
of them were sentenced to death and the youngest boy who was 13 was sentenced to life imprisonment.
One of the women who claimed to have been a rape victim cam forth and admitted that
she was coerced and manipulated into accusing these boys of raping her when they never even
touched her.
And finally in at number 1 we have George Stinney.
On March 1944, two young white girls had been found brutally murdered and beaten over the
head and dumped in a ditch.
George Stinney was a 14-year-old African American who was convicted of the murder as a result
of a racially biased and discriminatory jury.
He was convicted in less than 10 minutes by an all white jury and he was sentenced to
death.
He was denied an appeal and he was executed by the electric chair.
A group of lawyers and activists investigated this case and in 2014, he was exonerated of
all of the charges, nearly 70 years later.
Well there you guys have it…