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The district attorney says they won't pursue a new trial against Marty Tankleff, who was recently released by a New York Appeals court. "It is no longer possible to reasonably assert that the case ... would be successful," Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota told the Associated Press.

The Army finally compensated Samuel Snow, a man they wrongfully convicted in the 1940s. For 15 months in prison, a dishonorable discharge, a criminal record and no veteran benefits -- he received $725, according to CNN.

"If the payment had been adjusted for inflation, Snow would have received $7,768.13 ... If the $725 had been invested in 1946, when Snow was discharged from the Army, at 8 percent interest, compounded annually, it would have been worth more than $82,000 by now."

"This is a complicated tale. For the facts of the Dumond - Ashley Stevens rape case, and why Huckabee might have had doubts about Dumond's guilt, based on problems with the scientific evidence and Stevens' identification of Dumond, there's no better source than the appellate court opinions on the case," says Talk Left. Then they link to four of them, followed by extensive interviews and more details on the case.

"States have been wrestling with that question in recent years as the DNA revolution upended long-held notions about the reliability of evidence. And a new question has also emerged: Is money alone enough?" the New York Times asks in a continuation of its series on DNA exonerations.

"(W)hat does it hurt to do the testing before carrying out Arthur's execution? Even the victim's family has supported Arthur's efforts to get the evidence tested, expressing uncertainty about the truth in the case," the Birmingham news wrote in an editorial yesterday. Arthur has always proclaimed his innocence and there is still much doubt in the case, as the News points out. What everyone is trying to understand, however, is why Alabama is opposing testing evidence that has never been tested before Arthur's execution on Dec. 6. Either way, it could help to put the case to rest.

The Times interviewed 115 of the more than 200 people exonerated in the U.S. by post-conviction DNA testing. "The findings show that most of them have struggled to keep jobs, pay for health care, rebuild family ties and shed the psychological effects of years of questionable or wrongful imprisonment."

Reason's Radley Balko attended an Innocence Project fundraiser in Mississippi, where Cedric Willis, a wrongfully convicted but now exonerated and free man, was the keynote speaker. The city of Jackson, whose attorneys and police helped convict Willis, have resisted paying him compensation for the 12 years he was kept in prison. Balko says "Mississippi has no law in place to compensate the wrongfully convicted, but lawmakers there had probably better start thinking about one." 

Stephan Cowans spent nearly seven years in prison before DNA evidence cleared him in 2004 of shooting a Boston police officer. He was found dead in his home Thursday evening, the "apparent victim" of a "targeted crime," according to the Patriot Ledger.

The Innocence Project released a report that shows New York is behind other states in implementing reforms that could help prevent wrongful convictions, even though it's one of the states with the most DNA-related exonerations. The North Country Gazette has highlights of the report (pdf).

• In the last seven years, there has been a particularly high number of DNA exonerations in New York State. Since 2000, 17 wrongfully convicted people in New York have been exonerated with DNA evidence; seven of the 17 were wrongfully convicted of murder.
• In 10 of New York’s 23 DNA exonerations, the actual perpetrator was later identified.
• In nine of those 10 cases, the actual perpetrators of crimes for which innocent people were wrongfully convicted went on to commit additional crimes while an innocent person was in prison. According to law enforcement reports, five murders, seven rapes, two serious assaults and one robbery at gunpoint were committed by the actual perpetrators of crimes for which innocent people were committed – and each of those crimes was committed after the wrongful arrest or conviction, so they could have been prevented if wrongful convictions had not happened.
• Eyewitness misidentification played a role in 13 of the 23 wrongful convictions in New York that were overturned with DNA testing.
• In 10 of the 23 cases in New York, innocent people falsely confessed or admitted to crimes that DNA later proved they did not commit.
• Limited or unreliable forensic science played a role in 10 of the 23 wrongful convictions in New York that were overturned through DNA evidence.

Lorraine Michaels has sued Dwayne Allen Dail, the father of her son, for back child-support for the 20 some years he was wrongly imprisoned (he was released just two months ago). The attorney who filed the suit on behalf of Michaels "works in the same law office as Don Strickland, the former Wayne County assistant district attorney who prosecuted Dail for rape," according to WRAL.