Innocent Man Released From Prison After 20 Years, Thanks to EJI

A recent article from the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) discusses yesterday’s release of Beniah Dandridge, the fourth man to be released from prison in Alabama in 2015 after being wrongly condemned. EJI took on Dandridge’s case in November of 2014, after Dandridge had been in prison since 1995 for a murder that he did not commit.

The only evidence presented against Dandridge was a set of bloody fingerprints at the crime scene – that the Alabama Bureau of Investigation (ABI) claimed matched Dandridge’s fingerprints – and the falsified testimony of a jailhouse informant, who later said that he gave a falsified testimony in exchange for a reduced sentence. Dandridge testified that he was innocent and presented evidence that he was not present at the scene of the crime when it was committed, but he was convicted of intentional murder nonetheless. Dandridge was sentenced to life in prison and had been denied for parole twice by the time that EJI picked up his case.

Independent forensic examiners were able to prove Dandridge’s innocence by exposing the faulty methods ABI had used to compare the fingerprints and, instead, matched them to the murder victim’s son. As a result of this evidence and EJI’s involvement in the case, the judge demanded that Dandridge be released from prison, and Dandridge left prison yesterday afternoon as a free man.

To read the article by EJI, click here.

To read about the release of Montez Spradley, click here.

To read about the release of William Ziegler, click here.

To read about the release of Anthony Ray Hinton, click here.