11 States with Highest Number of Exonerations

3. California

Number of exonerated convicts: 158

Exonerated convict who served the longest time in prison: Michael Hanline (35 years)

In 1980, Michael Hanline was convicted of burglary and first-degree murder of J.T. McGarry. He spent next 35 years behind bars serving a life sentence in prison without parole. The wrongful conviction was the result of false accusation and serious flaws during the trial. Two weeks upon discovering McGarry’s body, police received the call from confidential informant who claimed that McGarry’s ex-girlfriend, Mary Bischoff, told him that “Hanline and a friend named Bo Messer abducted McGarry from his home in a stolen silver van, taped his hands with surgical tape and then shot him.” Although Mary Bischoff’s testimony differed from what informant had said, her story strongly implied that Hanline killed McGarry. Among other things, she said that “on the night of November 10, 1978—the last night that McGarry was seen alive—Hanline and Messer went out early in the evening. Hanline was carrying a .38-caliber pistol”, adding that “when he came back, he was dirty and sweaty and had vomit on his clothes.” The fact that informant’s and Bischoff’s stories differed to the extent that called for suspicion was intentionally withheld from Hanline’s lawyer.

In 2014, Michael Hanline, longest-serving wrongfully convicted man in California, was finally freed of charges after DNA testing showed that there were no traces of his DNA on crime evidence while DNA profile of an unidentified person was discovered.

After the charges had been dropped, Hanline said: “I didn’t think what happened to me could happen in America, but it did.”

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