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S3E10 The Exoneree Band – Finding Purpose and Healing After Wrongful Incarceration
How do you rebuild a life after it was taken from you? A wrongful conviction strips a person of their agency, leaving pain and loss where there once was freedom and purpose. Healing from such a…
S3E9 Why Being Right Won’t Set You Free — Hard Knox with Amanda Knox
In this episode of Hard Knox, now airing on For the Innocent, Amanda Knox sits down with Michael Semanchik and exoneree Scott McMahon. Scott is an American who endured more than five years of…
S3E7 Presumed Guilty: The Framing of William Michael Dillon
We trust the justice system to protect the innocent and prosecute the guilty, but what happens when it gets things catastrophically wrong? In 1981, 21-year-old William Michael Dillon became the focus…
S3E7 Survivors Guide to Prison: Examining a Broken System with Matthew Cooke
The failure rate of our prison systems is staggering, with recidivism exceeding 70% in nearly every state. What should this tell us about the success—or lack thereof—of our criminal justice system?…
S3E6 From Prison to the Oscars: The True Story Behind Sing Sing and Rehabilitation Through the Arts
A maximum-security prison may not seem like the natural setting for a homegrown theater program. But at Sing Sing Prison in New York, just such a project has inspired scores of incarcerated men to…
S3E5 A Murdered Cop and a Mishandled Mugshot – JJ Velazquez’s Wrongful Conviction
In 1998, a retired NYPD officer was shot and killed inside an illegal gambling parlor. Angry cops wanted speedy justice for one of their own, and an overzealous, incautious investigation ensued. A…
S3E4 The Collapse of a Conviction: How an LAPD Cop and Two Journalists Unraveled the Case Against Bruce Lisker
At just 17 years old, Bruce Lisker was branded a murderer after being accused and convicted of the violent killing of his mother. He would go on to spend the next 26 years of his life in prison,…
S3E3 A Deceitful Detective & Manipulated Evidence – The Wrongful Conviction of Bruce Lisker
In 1983, Bruce Lisker’s mother was violently attacked in their family home. After responding to his frantic 911 call, police quickly drew assumptions from the chaotic crime scene. Dorka Lisker was…
S3E2 Breaking Down the Amanda Knox Case: Facts vs. Frenzy
To this day, some still believe Amanda Knox is guilty of the horrific murder of Meredith Kercher in 2007. However, this belief appears to stem entirely from the wildly sensational media coverage…
S3E1 The Amanda Knox Story: Her Fight for Justice on the Global Stage
Suffering is part of the human experience, but most of us are granted the dignity of processing our pain and healing in private. For Amanda Knox, that has never been an option. As she herself puts…
Amanda Knox, JJ Velasquez, and More | For The Innocent Season 3 Trailer
Hosted by Michael Semanchik, For the Innocent exposes the shocking reality of wrongful convictions through raw, first-person stories from the exonerated. Season 3 returns September 9th featuring…
S2E12 Evidence Preservation: Who’s Responsible and What Happens When It’s Lost or Destroyed
At the moment of conviction, the incentive to safeguard evidence diminishes in the eyes of the Criminal Justice System. That’s why it is critically important to act quickly to ensure evidence remains…
S2E11 The Luis Vargas Story: Misidentified as the “Teardrop Rapist”
Luis Vargas was wrongfully convicted after three separate witnesses misidentified him as the “Teardrop Rapist.” Sixteen years later, DNA linked to the uncaught serial sex offender was found in one of…
S2E10 Eyewitness Misidentifications
In the first 325 DNA exonerations, false identification accounted for 72% of the wrongful convictions. But how is that possible? The simplest explanation is that we are not as good at identifying…
S2E9 The Guy Miles Story: How Flawed Eyewitness Identification Led to 18 Years in Prison
Guy Miles was wrongfully convicted after being misidentified by an eyewitness during a robbery investigation in Orange County, California. Although he had once been involved in gangs during his…
S2E8 Dark Pleas: Trading Innocence for Freedom in Post Conviction Deals
Imagine being in prison for decades. You’ve been fighting your appeal for many years. Your lawyer believes you’ll get a new trial but there is no guarantee that you’ll win your freedom. Suddenly, the…
S2E7 Angela’s Story: A Dark Plea in Exchange for Freedom
On November 20th 1999, Angela Garcia’s home caught on fire. Surprised and crawling in the dark, she was not able to find her children before the blaze forced her to jump out of a 2nd floor window.…
S2E6 Plea Deals: Why Innocent People Give Up and Go to Prison
Believe it or not, there are many reasons to plead guilty when you’re not.-----Plea deals are necessary to fight crime. Without them, our criminal justice system would grind to a halt, and the bad…
S2E5 Marilyn’s Story: A Plea Deal Turned Deadly
Marilyn Mulero was wrongfully suspected of a Chicago gang murder in 1992. Naive to the criminal justice system, she was frightened into signing a statement by threats of the death penalty from law…
S2E4 Junk Science - Undoing the Damage
When forensic evidence gets it wrong, how do we free the innocent?-----In our history of criminal prosecutions, some types of evidence ended up being unreliable. Forensic sciences like bite-mark…
Frequently Asked Questions
For the Innocent has published 37 episodes since March 2023, covering topics in Documentary, Society & Culture.
For the Innocent is currently moderate with new episodes every 2 weeks. Average episode length is 37m.
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