(Last Name) 1

(Hassan Nuh)

Mr. Hutchins

English 3

(March 15th 20201)

The innocence project essay

According to the innocence project 1 percent of the US prison population, approximately

twenty thousand people, are falsely convicted. I will talk about how a wrongful accusation got

Marvin Anderson into being a suspect. Firstly, A young woman was raped by a black man saying

he lives with a white girl and Anderson was the only black man the officer knew who lives with

a white woman (The Innocence Project. United States, 2002.)This explains Marvin was targeted

because of his skin color and that he might be a suspect due to his color of skin.

The trial should not have even happened Marvin was targeted because of his color.

Furthermore, The trial was short and relied on the victim which confused Anderson with another

black named John Otis Lincoln. (The Innocence Project. United States, 2002). This explains that

the evidence was inclusive and did not tell the fully story. "Within an hour of the photo spread,

she was asked to identify her assailant from a lineup. Anderson was the only person in the lineup

whose picture was in the original photo array shown to the victim and the victim identified him

in the lineup as well". (The Innocence Project. United States, 2002.) This is helpful because it

helped identify the perpetrator wrongfully. "At trial, the victim testified in detail regarding the

assault and again identified Anderson as her assailant. The serology work completed by the

Virginia Bureau of Forensic Science was uninformative”. (The Innocence Project. United States,
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2002.) This explains that the forensic scientist was uninformative and did not provide enough

evidence to provide that Marvin Anderson was the perpetrator who assaulted that woman.

If not for DNA Marvin Anderson may not have gotten freed and DNA testing shows that

human eyewitness can’t be trusted because they could blame a crime on a innocent person.

Lastly, DNA testing being available along with John Otis being a suspect led the innocence

project to investigate his wrongful conviction. (The Innocence Project. United States, 2002.) This

helpful because it helps understand if not for DNA Melvin Anderson’s case would not have been

taken by the innocence project and he might have not been freed. “The results excluded

Anderson as the perpetrator and when it was run through Virginia’s convicted offender DNA

database, it matched two inmates. Although the identity of these two men has not been officially

revealed, it appears that one of the inmates is John Otis Lincoln". (The Innocence Project. United

States, 2002). This explains that all along it was John Otis Lincoln who was perpetrator and not

Marvin Anderson who had to spend 15 in prison for a crime he did not commit. (The Innocence

Project. United States, 2002)."the most likely suspect was another black man named John Otis

Lincoln. The bicycle that had been identified as being used by the assailant was identified by the

owner, who said that Lincoln had stolen it from him approximately a half hour before the rape".

This explains that Marvin Anderson wasn’t the perpetrator and that it was John

Otis who committed the sex crimes. In conclusion the justice system isn’t always fair and

innocent ones are the ones who always pay the price for it such as Marvin. According to the

innocence project 1 percent of the US prison population, approximately twenty-thousand

people, are falsely convicted.

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Citations

https://innocenceproject.org/cases/marvin-anderson/

https://abcnews.go.com/US/york-city-man-exonerated-spending-25-years-prison/story?

id=71425566

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tennessee-man-freed-after-nearly-15-years-prison-

wrongful-murder-n1247795

https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2020/04/us/longest-wrongful-prison-sentence/