North Carolina Death Row Inmate is Second in U.S. to be Exonerated this Month

December 12, 2007

Prosecutors in North Carolina on December 11 dropped all charges against Jonathon Hoffman, who had been convicted and sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of a jewelry store owner. Hoffman won a new trial in 2004 because information favorable to Hoffman was withheld from the defense. During Hoffman’s first trial, the state's key witness, Johnell Porter, had received immunity from federal charges for testifying against his cousin. The defense attorneys, jury, and the judge did not know of the deal. Porter has since recanted his testimony, stating that he lied in order to get back at his cousin for stealing money from him.

Defense attorney Joseph Cheshire stated, "I think in the last five to six years, there's a fairly well-demonstrated pattern of wrongful convictions in North Carolina that are only now coming to light because of our new open discovery law."

(“Prosecutor Drops Charges Against Former Death Row Inmate,” by Martha Waggoner, Associated Press, December 11, 2007). See also Innocence.

Hoffman is the sixth North Carolina person to be exonerated of capital charges and the 126th in the nation since 1973. He is the third person exonerated in 2007, and the second in December. Earlier in December, Michael McCormick was acquitted by a jury at his retrial in Tennessee. All charges were dismissed against Curtis McCarty in Oklahoma earlier this year.

Source: Death Penalty Information Center

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