Richard J. Condon Commissioner Division Of Criminal Justice Services

Police Use of Deadly Force in New York State: A Report to Governor Mario M. Cuomo (1985) offers one of the earliest systematic examinations of how and why lethal force was deployed by law enforcement across the state during a period of intense public scrutiny. Commissioned at a time when debates over police accountability, training standards, and civil rights were gaining national prominence, the report evaluates legal frameworks, departmental policies, and patterns of police–citizen encounters to assess the necessity and proportionality of deadly force incidents. Drawing on case reviews, agency surveys, and statistical analyses, it seeks to identify structural weaknesses and propose reforms aimed at reducing unnecessary violence and strengthening public trust.

Viewed from today’s perspective, the report stands as an important precursor to contemporary discussions about policing and the appropriate limits of state power. In the decades since its publication, nationwide movements such as Black Lives Matter, advances in data transparency, increased availability of video evidence, and evolving constitutional standards have intensified scrutiny of deadly force practices. Modern debates continue to revolve around issues the 1985 report identified early on: the need for clear and consistent use‑of‑force policies, robust training in de‑escalation, improved data collection, and stronger mechanisms of accountability. As current policymakers and communities grapple with how to balance public safety, civil liberties, and equitable treatment, this historical report offers valuable insight into the longstanding nature of these challenges and the enduring need for thoughtful, evidence‑based reform.

If you'd like, I can also turn this into a full foreword, integrate it into a larger document, or tailor the tone for academic, policy, or public audiences.

NY. Division Of Criminal Justice Services. 1985. p.273.

By Richard Wilmer Rowan/ Introduction Graeme R. Newman

The enduring legacy of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency serves as a foundational blueprint for modern private security and state surveillance, making Richard Wilmer Rowan’s 1931 chronicle, The Pinkertons: A Detective Dynasty, an essential text for understanding the evolution of policing in the twenty-first century. When Rowan published this work, the United States was grappling with the rise of organized crime and the professionalization of the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover, yet the shadow of the Pinkerton "Eye" remained the most potent symbol of investigative authority in the American consciousness. To read this book today is to witness the birth of the surveillance state and the privatization of law enforcement, themes that have only intensified with the advent of digital tracking and global security conglomerates. Rowan provides a meticulous window into how a single family transformed from a small Midwestern agency into a quasi-governmental force that, at its peak, employed more men than the standing army of the United States. This historical dominance raises uncomfortable but necessary questions about the blurred lines between private profit and public safety, a tension that remains at the heart of contemporary debates regarding police reform and the rise of private military contractors.

Rowan’s examination of Allan Pinkerton’s tenure as the head of the Union Intelligence Service during the Civil War—the precursor to the Federal Secret Service—highlights the original sin of American intelligence: the reliance on private entities to perform core state functions. The portrait of Pinkerton that opens the book is not merely a likeness of a man but an icon of the "Eye that never sleeps," a concept that has evolved from a physical detective on a street corner to the algorithmic "always-on" monitoring of the internet and public spaces. In today’s context, the methods pioneered by the Pinkertons, such as the systematic collection of "mug shots" and the creation of detailed criminal databases, are the direct ancestors of facial recognition technology and predictive policing. By studying Rowan’s account of these early techniques, a modern reader can trace the genealogy of modern privacy erosion, recognizing that the desire for total information awareness is not a product of the silicon age but a nineteenth-century ambition codified by the Pinkerton dynasty.

Furthermore, the book’s detailed accounts of the agency’s role in labor disputes offer a sobering reflection on the current state of corporate security and workers' rights. The Pinkertons became synonymous with "union-busting" and the violent suppression of strikes, most notably during the Homestead Strike of 1892, an event that Rowan treats with the gravity of a military campaign. In an era where modern tech giants and multinational corporations are frequently accused of using sophisticated surveillance and psychological tactics to discourage unionization, the tactics described in this 1931 text feel disturbingly fresh. Rowan allows us to see that the privatization of force has historically served to protect capital at the expense of civil liberties, providing a historical mirror for today’s discussions on the "gig economy" and the power dynamics between massive employers and their workforces.

Ultimately, Rowan’s narrative is relevant because it captures the transition of the detective from a romanticized figure of justice into a cold instrument of institutional power. While the book was written nearly a century ago, its exploration of how information is gathered, how secrets are traded, and how private individuals can wield the authority of the law remains the central drama of our digital age. It serves as a reminder that the "Lawless Police" described by Hopkins and the "Detective Dynasty" described by Rowan are two sides of the same coin—a persistent struggle to define where the power of the state ends and the rights of the individual begin. As we navigate an era defined by data breaches, private security patrols in residential neighborhoods, and state-sponsored cyber-espionage, Rowan’s history provides the necessary context to understand that we are not living in a new world, but rather a more technologically advanced version of the one the Pinkertons built.

Boston. Little, Brown, And Company. I931. Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.208.

By Ernest Jerome Hopkins. Introduction by Graeme R. Newman

When Our Lawless Police first appeared in 1931, it shocked the American public with its unflinching revelations about the dark machinery behind everyday law enforcement. Ernest Jerome Hopkins—an investigative journalist of rare precision and independence—exposed a world where the police, entrusted with upholding justice, routinely violated the very laws they were sworn to enforce.

Drawing on first-hand interviews, case records, and on-the-ground reporting from major cities, Hopkins documents a pervasive system of beatings, coerced confessions, warrantless searches, political favoritism, payoffs, and routine brutality. His study reveals not a handful of rogue officers but an entrenched culture in which illegality operates as a method of governance—shielded by political machines, tolerated by the courts, and often applauded by a public eager for swift results.

More than a historical exposé, Our Lawless Police remains a profoundly relevant critique of institutional power. Hopkins’ analysis anticipates many of today’s urgent debates over police accountability, civil liberties, and the limits of state authority. His work reminds us that democratic societies cannot rely on the rule of law unless those who enforce it are themselves bound by it.

This new edition brings Hopkins’ landmark investigation back into the center of contemporary conversation—an essential text for readers concerned with justice, reform, and the unfinished struggle to build lawful, transparent, and accountable policing in America.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.203.

By M. D. Vattel. Introduction by Graeme R. Newman

A foundational work of international law, still resonant today.

First published in the eighteenth century and issued in authoritative English editions throughout the nineteenth, The Law of Nations by Emer de Vattel shaped how statesmen, jurists, and diplomats understood the rights and duties of sovereign powers. In this monumental treatise, Vattel applies the principles of natural law to the real conduct of nations, addressing war and peace, treaties and alliances, commerce and neutrality, diplomacy, and the limits of lawful power.

Rejecting both utopian idealism and brute realpolitik, Vattel argues that true national interest is inseparable from justice, restraint, and respect for sovereignty. Nations, like individuals, are bound by moral obligations arising from their coexistence in a shared international society. His careful analysis of war, intervention, and treaty obligations established enduring standards that influenced constitutional debates, foreign policy doctrine, and the development of modern international law.

This edition preserves a work that continues to illuminate contemporary conflicts and global challenges. Clear-eyed, systematic, and profoundly influential, The Law of Nations remains essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how lawful order, moral principle, and power intersect in the affairs of nations.

The theses advanced in The Law of Nations remain strikingly relevant to contemporary international disputes, particularly those involving intervention, recognition of governments, and claims of humanitarian necessity. Vattel’s insistence on sovereignty as the cornerstone of international order places clear limits on the legitimacy of external interference in the internal affairs of states. While he allows that extreme cases—such as manifest tyranny threatening the very existence of a people—may raise difficult moral questions, he consistently warns that powerful states are prone to disguise ambition and interest under the language of justice.

This caution is especially pertinent when considering recent controversies surrounding efforts by the United States to promote regime change in Venezuela, including diplomatic, economic, and political measures aimed at displacing the government of Nicolás Maduro. From a Vattelian perspective, such actions raise fundamental questions about lawful authority, the limits of collective judgment, and the distinction between moral condemnation and legal right. Vattel argues that no nation may unilaterally assume the role of judge over another sovereign without undermining the mutual independence on which international society depends. To do so, he suggests, risks converting international law into a mere instrument of power.

At the same time, Vattel’s framework does not deny the reality of gross misrule or humanitarian suffering. Rather, it demands rigorous scrutiny of motives and means. Economic coercion, diplomatic isolation, and recognition of alternative authorities would, in his analysis, need to be justified not by ideological preference or strategic advantage, but by clear evidence that such measures genuinely serve the common good of nations and do not erode the general security of the international system. His emphasis on proportionality, necessity, and respect for established sovereignty stands in tension with modern practices of intervention that rely on contested doctrines of legitimacy.

Viewed through this lens, contemporary debates over Venezuela illustrate the enduring force of Vattel’s central warning: that the stability of international relations depends less on the moral claims of individual powers than on shared restraint. His work reminds modern readers that the erosion of sovereignty in one case—however rhetorically justified—sets precedents that may ultimately weaken the legal protections upon which all nations, strong and weak alike, rely.

P.H. Nicklitn etc. Philadelphia. 1829. Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026 p.424.

By Eleni Manis, PHD and Albert Fox Cahn, Esq

In this report, S.T.O.P. documents the New York City Police Department (NYPD)’s repeated failures to comply with New York City’s Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology Act (POST Act). Enacted in 2020, the POST Act is the first law to oversee the NYPD’s use of surveillance technology. A first attempt to regulate NYPD’s surveillance tools, the law only requires NYPD disclose its surveillance tools. As this report establishes, NYPD falls far short of the reporting norms set by other police departments subject to similar surveillance technology oversight laws. The report concludes by calling on the New York City Council to use its oversight authority to ensure that the bill is not ignored. S.T.O.P. also recommends that individual lawmakers and civil society organizations continue to evaluate potential litigation, seeking judicial intervention to compel the NYPD to comply with the POST Act.

By Mahima Arya, Juilee Shivalker, Maxwell Votey, Jackie Singh, Albert Fox Cahn, ESQ., Eleni Manis, PHD, MPA

Ultra-Wideband (“UWB”) is a short-range wireless technology somewhat like Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, but with superior locating abilities, enabling the highly accurate identification of an object’s position in three-dimensional space. UWB capabilities are now standard on many newer-model smartphones, allowing users to track UWB-enabled beacons from their smartphones and allowing vendors to leverage inbuilt UWB capabilities to create massive sensor networks using unwitting users’ mobile devices. This report focuses on privacy and anti-trust concerns surrounding UWB beacons, the tip of the iceberg of planned UWB applications. Because UWB’s locating abilities are so precise, beacons provide an easy way to track and stalk people. Beacons pass detailed device location data through neighboring devices’ networks, introducing the twin risks of malicious hacking and commercial exploitation by vendors. Apple and Amazon have acted to shut competitors out of the UWB beacon space, demonstrating a clear linkage between the story of these beacons and the larger story of Big Tech anti-trust concerns.

By Paula Garcia-Salazar, Nina Loshkajian, Albert Fox Cahn, ESQ., Eleni Manis, PHD, MPA

Everyone sees them: signs “welcoming” you to a neighborhood with the warning that “All Suspicious Persons and Activities Reported to Law Enforcement.” In the 1960’s, Neighborhood Watch groups proliferated in supposed response to increased burglaries. 1 In fact, the groups appear to have been a direct response to increased residential integration.2 A brainchild of the National Sheriffs Association, Neighborhood Watch groups were touted as a way to increase community involvement in crime prevention by encouraging residents to patrol their own streets and act as the eyes and ears of the local police. 3 But too often, local residents have interpreted this as a chance to become vigilantes, in many cases acting purely on bias to raise false alarms and profile fellow community members, endangering the very people these groups are allegedly designed to protect. 4 The groups have proliferated across the country even as they have been demonstrated to promote profiling and distract from actual public safety, there being little evidence that Neighborhood Watch programs reduce crime. 5 Now, a new form of Neighborhood Watch is here: smartphone-based apps that supplant the classic program with online forums for local neighborhoods. Nextdoor (27 million regular users),6 Neighbors by Ring (10 million users),7 Citizen (7 million users),8 and recently piloted Facebook Neighborhoods deliver “hyperlocal” updates to geographic “neighbors.” Nextdoor and Facebook Neighborhoods invite users to post on a range of local-interest content: upcoming events, business reviews, goods for sale, and so on. But the backbone of neighborhood surveillance apps is crime, both real and imagined. Apps encourage users to upload video footage, photos and descriptions of suspected crimes and supposedly “suspicious” people near their homes, producing reports riddled with dog whistles and overt racism. Apps court a police audience for these posts and enable police to request app users’ video footage, photos, and input. Apps even drive user engagement by inviting bystanders join in on the crime-oriented conversation: as on Facebook, users can comment, “like” and otherwise interact with posts with the click of a button.

By Albert Fox Cahn, ESQ. Caroline Magee

On January 7, 2020, New York City released its Internet Master Plan. The document identified how many New Yorkers lacked access to broadband and what the City intended to do about it. The numbers were staggering: 46% of New York households in poverty lack a home broadband subscription.[1]

But what had been a problem evolved into a crisis when the COVID-19 pandemic descended on New York City in March. For the first time, New Yorkers had to stay home: as New York’s 1.1 million public school students logged into Zoom for the first time, and their parents tried to take phone meetings in the same rooms, it became clear that the internet, once a luxury, was now a necessity.

As the fall semester loomed, the de Blasio administration tried to close the gap in July 2020, investing $157 million for providing low-or-no-cost internet to 600,000 New Yorkers, one-third of whom live in New York City Housing Authority housing.[2] The City is scrambling. In this light, a plan to expand internet access for residents of New York City is much needed and reflects the modern reality of reliable, affordable internet access as a barrier for reaching public services and economic opportunities. What is missing from the City’s Internet Master Plan, however, is a needed degree of specificity on the privacy and cybersecurity protections built into this planned internet expansion.

By S.T.O.P

In this first annual surveillance census, S.T.O.P. sought to map out all of the internet-enabled cameras operating in New York City. Even as many companies hide the location of their surveillance equipment, the Chinese-based firm Hikvision still allows their devices to be located…and the results are shocking. We identified 16,692 cameras in New Yorker City alone. This page details where Hikvision cameras across the five boroughs. While the numbers are extraordinarily high, please remember that for every one Hikvision camera we have mapped, there are dozens, possibly hundreds of other camera systems whose location remains hidden.

By S.T.O.P.

Our review of the 146 individuals who plead guilty in connection with the January 6th insurrection shows that facial recognition and other surveillance technology is not needed to properly identify suspects. Department of Justice data documents only 3 cases that used facial recognition. In contrast, the vast majority of cases used low-tech and less-invasive techniques, with 104 cases using tips from the public.

By Helen Webley-Brown, Anna Sipek, Katie Buoymaster, Juliee Shivalker, Will Owen, Eleni Manis, PHD, MPA

U.S. cities are squandering money on ShotSpotter’s unproven gunshot surveillance technology. 

• ShotSpotter surveillance increases police activity, but it wastes officers’ time. One major study of the technology showed that ShotSpotter fails as an investigative tool, providing no evidence of a gun-related crime more than 90% of the time and producing exceedingly few arrests (less than 1 per 200 stops) and recovered guns (less than 1 per 300 stops).

• ShotSpotter fails the Black and Latinx communities where it appears to be disproportionately deployed. The tool increases police activity and the risk of police violence without producing any significant effect on firearm offenses or on shooting victims’ medical outcomes.

By Evan Enzer, Anna Sipek, Mahima Arya, Nina Loshkajian, David Siffert, Eleni Manis, PHD, MPA

New cars are surveillance on wheels, sending sensitive passenger data to carmakers and police. Cars also store enormous amounts of passenger data onboard, where police can extract it using specialized tools. We estimate that law enforcement agencies could have accessed car data hundreds of thousands of times in 2020.

• Constitutional loopholes allow access to most data on cars without a warrant. Police can access information from car-connected phones and online accounts without the warrant typically required.

• U.S. immigration agencies weaponize car data. Other law enforcement agencies are poised to follow suit if they are not already doing so.

• New legislation, enforcement of existing data protection laws, and responsible car design and data storage policies can shift car data surveillance into reverse.

Police foundations allow police departments to secretly fund controversial programs and equipment.

• Foundations invest in dangerous surveillance tools like predictive policing software, digital surveillance platforms, cellphone hacking devices, and robotic spy dogs. 

• Foundations allow departments and officers to accept gifts from contractors in a way that would normally be illegal for city employees.

• Foundations violate good-government standards for city agencies and transparency standards for nonprofit organizations. Ideally, they should be abolished, but at a minimum, cities must end untraceable donations and corporate influence peddling.

By Evan Enzer, Arjun Ravi, Julian Melendi, Sohini Upadhyay, Eleni Manis, PHD, MPA

“Smart home” devices record audio and video in the home—and even collect daily schedules and health details. Once collected, this data is less than a warrant or data breach away from police and hacker access. Across the board, smart home devices have superior, privacy-protecting alternatives that perform the same key functions. The law doesn’t protect smart home users. “Do not buy” is the best advice until it does

Eleni Manis, PHD, MPA, Alexander Hughes, PHD

As NYC relies increasingly on traffic cameras, the NYPD has pulled over more and more drivers for a minor traffic infraction—license plate obstruction—particularly in precincts with the most BIPOC residents.

• This problem is only getting worse: NYPD’s racist enforcement gap doubled between 2016 and 2021.

• Automated traffic enforcement shouldn’t lead to more in-person traffic stops. Cities should study cameras' effects and adjust policing policies to ensure that cameras don't contribute to the over policing of BIPOC communities.

By Andy Ratto, Nino Loshkajian, Eleni Manis, PHD, MPA

• Police increasingly replace stop-and-frisk practices with databases that crudely profile Black and Latinx youth based on their neighborhoods, peer groups, and clothing.

• These databases ruin lives: police typecast minority youths as gang members without evidence, putting them at risk of false arrest and wrongful deportation.

• Many police departments refuse to implement due process safeguards despite clear evidence that their databases are based on racial profiling, not evidence.

• Even the most rigorous safeguards would be insufficient to mitigate the full range of harms that these databases pose. They must be eliminated in their entirety.

By Mina Kim, PhD; Phillip Atiba Solomon, PhD; Justin M. Feldman, ScD

Introduction In the US, injuries caused by law enforcement are a public health concern and driver of racial health inequities.1-4 While fatalities have attracted considerable public attention, nonfatal injuries inflicted by police are far more prevalent. Analyzing nonfatal injury trends can therefore help to answer critical questions about how populations experience policing, including whether the major advocacy efforts related to racial inequity in policing occurring from 2014 to 20215 coincided with changes to rates of legal intervention injury overall or by racial and ethnic group. Methods This repeated cross-sectional study analyzed publicly accessible, deidentified data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System—All Injuries Program (NEISS-AIP), a nationally representative sample of US hospital emergency departments (EDs), for the period 2004 to 2021. Local ethics review and informed consent were not required in accordance with the Common Rule. This study followed the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) reporting guideline for cross-sectional studies. In NEISS-AIP, legal intervention includes an injury or poisoning caused by on-duty police or other legal authorities, including private security guards. NEISS-AIP offers an advantage over administrative claims data, which underreport substantial shares of legal intervention injuries.6 We used NEISS-AIP’s predefined race and ethnicity categories, which were derived from patient medical records (eAppendix in Supplement 1). All analyses were performed between September 2024 and July 2025 using R software version 4.2 (R Project for Statistical Computing) with the survey and mgcv packages. We fit quasi-Poisson models for injury rates, treating year as a spline (for visualization) or as linear (to assess trends quantitatively), using parametric bootstrapping to construct CIs. We deemed any 95% CI for the linearized trend line that included the null value to be inconclusive as to its directionality, but we still interpreted the confidence limit as the bounds within which the trend was expect to fall. Additional methodological details are available in the eAppendix in Supplement 1.Results Between 2004 and 2021, a total of 1 500 577 ED visits (95% CI, 1 073 632-1 927 522; 85% [95% CI, 60% to 100%] men; mean [SD] age, 33 [12] years) in the US were for legal intervention injuries. Among patients with race and ethnicity data, 42.3% (95% CI, 21.2% to 63.4%) were African American or Black, 13.9% (95% CI, 5.4% to 22.3%) were Hispanic or Latinx, and 41.1% (95% CI, 30.7% to 51.5%) were White. Most patients were treated and released, with only 4.3% (95% CI, 2.5% to 6.1%) requiring hospitalization (Table). Legal intervention injury rates for the US population as a whole remained relatively stable over the study period (Figure), with the 2021 rate at 92% (95% CI, 71% to 119%) the level of the 2004 rate. Over the study period, mean injury rates for African American or Black people were 5.3 (95% CI,4.6 to 6.2) times those of White people. Rates for Hispanic or Latinx people were 1.5 (95% CI, 1.2 to 1.7) times those of White people. While the point estimates for Black:White RR decreased by 6%, from 5.48 in 2004 to 5.13 in 2021, uncertainty was high, with the 95% CI ranging from a 42% reduction to 51% increase. For the Latinx population, the RR decreased from 1.94 in 2004 to 1.06 in 2021, corresponding to a 45% (95% CI, 12% to 66%) decrease.

JAMA Netw Open. 2025

By Brandon Garrett

Most jurisdictions in the United States now record interrogations, including all federal law enforcement agencies, thirty states, and the District of Columbia. This memo provides updated information about the state-level adoption of electronic recording requirements, in a table displayed below, through statutes, court rulings and rules, and police policies. In addition, many localities now require the recording of some of all interrogations. 1 Leading law, psychology, criminal procedure, and policing experts have long recommended electronically recording interrogations, preferably by videotaping the full interrogation. The American Psychology-Law Society has set out what is known about police-induced confessions and has recommended mandatory electronic recording. 2 The International Association of Chiefs of Police recommends recording “all interviews involving major crimes” and prefers video recordings.3 The American Law Institute’s Principles of Policing set out the principle that: “Written policies should set out the procedures for the recording of questioning, and for the disclosure and the retention of recorded evidence.” 4 A large body of high-profile exonerations of innocent persons have occurred in cases in which false confessions were obtained during interrogations that were not recorded. In cases of “confession contamination,” law enforcement falsely reports that a suspect had volunteered supposedly inside information during an interrogation. Almost all of the persons exonerated by post-conviction DNA testing, who had falsely confessed, also had reports by law enforcement that the defendant had volunteered key crime scene details. We now know, with the benefit of DNA testing, that law enforcement contaminated these interrogations through the use of leading questions or feeding facts to the suspect. And none of the interrogations in those cases of DNA exonerations had been recorded in their entirety.5 Recording police questioning assists law-enforcement agencies by furthering the important goal of documenting evidence and ensuring the conviction of those who commit wrongdoing.6 Video recordings also empower judges to better assess the reliability of interrogation evidence, both to reject false claims of police overreaching and to examine potential wrongful convictions. 7 Agencies have reported positive experiences with recording interrogations because it provides powerful documentation that interrogations are conducted professionally and non-coercively.8 Fears that “few would allow themselves to be interviewed or interrogated” if it were known that interviews and interrogations are recorded have not been realized in jurisdictions in which recording has been introduced. 9 That said, the Principles of Policing noted that some flexibility with reluctant witnesses may be important. In addition, it may be increasingly feasible to conduct video recording in the field, as body-worn cameras are utilized more widely by agencies. And that said, states do often provide for exceptions due to exigent circumstances, equipment malfunction and the like.10 As summarized below, state statutes increasingly have required recording at least some categories of police questioning of Justice has a memorandum setting out a policy for recording interrogations; several states have done the same. Although the Principles of Policing took no position on the admissibility of unrecorded statements, others have. For example, the Alaska Supreme Court has ruled that judges should suppress unrecorded statements unless failure to record is excused by good cause; other courts have adopted court rules or rules of evidence requiring electronic recording of interrogations. 12 The table below summarizes these statutes, court rulings, rules, and policies.

Durham, NC: Wilson Center for Science and Justice Duke University School of Law. 2024. 7p.

By Marcus Pollard and Angie Weis Gammell

Guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is the bedrock principle of the American criminal legal system, and yet, thousands of innocent people have been convicted of crimes they did not commit. These wrongful convictions undermine the integrity of our criminal legal system. The National Registry of Exonerations (National Registry) has tracked every known exoneration since 1989 and reports that there have been 3,348 exonerations amounting to 29,950 years lost to wrongful incarceration. 1 This includes 75 exonerations in North Carolina since 1989, representing a combined 963 years of wrongful confinement. 2 In response to high-profile cases and exonerations, North Carolina implemented significant reforms in the early 2000s and became a leader in preventing wrongful convictions. During this time, North Carolina implemented open file sharing and established the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission (“Commission”). North Carolina also enacted the Electronic Recording Act, the DNA Databank Act, and the Eyewitness Identification Reform Act. Several Innocence Project organizations were also established in North Carolina to represent individuals with wrongful convictions claims. One of those organizations, the Duke Wrongful Convictions Clinic, went on to become a founding member of the Innocence Network, which is a network of innocence organizations that work to combat wrongful convictions. 3 Since 2006, however, there have been 58 exonerations, 11 of which had their underlying conviction occurring after 2006, despite having these reforms in place. 4 These most recent wrongful convictions could result from the stall in reforms in North Carolina since the early 2000s.This report describes the wave of legislation that occurred in North Carolina in the early 2000s, considering both the improvements that were made and the gaps that remain. It then analyzes the 11 documented cases of wrongful convictions since the establishment of the Commission in 2006 to identify the reforms that North Carolina still needs. This report emphasizes that to reclaim its role as a national leader in conviction integrity, North Carolina should amend its open-file discovery policy, police interrogation practices, plea process, use of eyewitnesses and police informants, and use of forensic evidence. Finally, this report offers recommendations on ways to prevent wrongful convictions and make relief more accessible for those with plausible claims of factual innocence to ensure that those who have been wrongfully convicted have a genuine opportunity to prove their innocence. Overall, this report underscores the importance of taking proactive steps to prevent wrongful convictions and providing relief to those who have been wrongly convicted.

Durham, NC: Wilson Center for Science and Justice Duke University School of Law. 2024. 52p.

After 44 years in prison for a conviction of rape in the small town of Concord, North Carolina, Ronnie Long was released from prison in 2021. Four months later, the Governor granted him a full pardon on the grounds of innocence.1 That pardon made it possible to obtain compensation from a state commission, which awarded Long $750,000. This amount was the maximum available under state law that permitted compensation of $50,000 per year of incarceration, but with an upper limit of $750,000.2 After his exoneration, Long also filed a civil rights lawsuit in federal court. This federal case against the city settled for $22 million in 2024. Long also received $3 million from the North Carolina State Crime Lab as a result of its “role in hiding evidence from Mr. Long and his legal team that proved his innocence.”3 This substantial settlement made Long Compensating Exonerees in the United States highly unusual among exonerees in the United States. Most exonerees, if they are compensated, received something more along the lines of the $50,000 per year available under the state law that initially compensated Long, and nothing more. Many exonerees receive no compensation at all. Academics have long criticized the traditional lack of compensation for wrongful conviction in the United States.4 In 1932, Edwin Borchard wrote that the United States needed national legislation regarding compensation for wrongful convictions.5 For many decades, no such legislation existed, however. Civil rights litigation, like the case brought by Long, was uncommon, and compensation under statutory schemes was similarly rare. This changed once exonerations became much more common, including those based on post-conviction DNA evidence, in the 1990s. In general, many of the exonerees that have received substantial compensation, like Ronnie Long, have brought civil rights lawsuits in federal, not state court. For example, of the first 250 DNA exonerees, 60% received some type of compensation, and of those, half of them obtained it in federal court.6 However, exonerees are increasingly seeeking compensation under state compensation statutes. In this fact sheet, we describe how compensation for exonerees has evolved in the past several decades, including through successful litigation efforts and through the enactment of compensation legislation, in thirty-nine states, Washington D.C., and by the federal government.We summarize each of these state and federal statutes in the table at the end of this document. To date, 39 states have enacted such compensation statutes, in addition to Washington D.C. and the federal government. In addition, five of the remaining 11 states currently have pending legislation on the issue. The figure below shows which jurisdictions have these statutes currently, and which have these statutes currently, and which have legislation pending

Durham, NC: Wilson Center for Science and Justice Duke University School of Law, 2025. 20p.