DID YOU KNOW? Official misconduct is more common in murder convictions that lead to exonerations of black defendants than in those with white defendants. According to the National Registry of Exonerations report Race and Wrongful Convictions in the United States 2022, 72 percent of the murder prosecutions that led to exoneration included official misconduct. The most common form of misconduct was concealing exculpatory evidence—often called “Brady violations” after the landmark 1963 Supreme Court case Brady v. Maryland. Witness tampering—everything from misleading a witness at a lineup, to threatening a witness, to suborning perjury—occurred in 35 percent of murder exoneration cases. Both apply to Mr. Burton’s first conviction for the murder of a white police officer—the conviction that landed him in prison in the first place.
