The Innocence Institute of Point Park University
An investigative reporting organization that probes allegations of wrongful convictions.
Police departments throughout Pennsylvania are using procedures that lead eyewitnesses to falsely identify and help convict innocent people.
Through a survey of 228 police departments in the region and dozens of interviews, the Innocence Institute found police are using faulty eyewitness identification methods that cause wrongful convictions. The institute investigated hundreds of individual …
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Saturday, August 13, 2005
By Bill Moushey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
SOMERSET, Pa. -- Justin Kirkwood was so depressed about the two years he had spent in prison for a robbery he says he didn't commit that he called his parents collect on Wednesday just to hear their voices.
That's when his father told him to "pack your bags because you're coming home" -- the first time Kirkwood learned …
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Thursday, August 11, 2005
By Bill Moushey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
NEW CASTLE -- Ruling that a prosecutor created "a ruse designed to confuse" a key alibi witness and that a defense lawyer didn't do enough to uncover it during a 2003 trial, a Lawrence County judge yesterday vacated the armed robbery conviction of Justin Kirkwood and ordered a retrial.
In a sharply worded 24-page opinion, …
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By Bill Moushey and Nathan Crabbe
On August 14, 2002, New Castle car dealer Bill Fitts’ remembers the exact time he spoke with Justin Kirkwood on the phone at his family’s Lawrence County home because he watched the 7 p.m. lottery picks on television right after the brief conversation.
Around the same time across the worn-out former mill town, a young man burst into the Family Craft Center …
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Man 'can't believe' charges dropped
Saturday, December 02, 2006
By Bill Moushey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
NEW CASTLE -- Justin Kirkwood was astonished four years ago when two victims of a $170 armed robbery implicated him at a time he was at home with a group of family and friends, even taking a telephone call at the time the robbery occurred.
He was equally amazed in 2003 when he was …
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'You're coming home'
Saturday, August 13, 2005
By Bill Moushey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
SOMERSET, Pa. -- Justin Kirkwood was so depressed about the two years he had spent in prison for a robbery he says he didn't commit that he called his parents collect on Wednesday just to hear their voices.
That's when his father told him to "pack your bags because you're coming home" -- the first …
[Read more...]
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
By Bill Moushey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The president of the Lawrence County Bar Association has accused a county prosecutor of committing fraud to help convict a man of robbery in 2003.
Jonathan Solomon has filed a complaint with the Disciplinary Board of the state Supreme Court, contending that Assistant District Attorney Birgitta Tolvanen improperly cross-examined …
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'You got to believe'
Sunday, May 08, 2005
By Bill Moushey and Nathan Crabbe, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
New Castle car dealer Bill Fitts says he remembers the exact time he spoke with Justin Kirkwood on the phone Aug. 14, 2002, because Fitts watched the 7 p.m. lottery picks on television right after the brief conversation.
Around the same time in the rundown former mill town, a young man …
[Read more...]