clemente javier aguirre on monday became the 21st person exonerated by dna evidence after being sentenced to death. in 2006 he was unjustly convicted of a double murder in florida.
aguirre, 38, received incompetent legal representation at his trial - his lawyer failed to hire forensic experts or demand a single dna test on the vast amount of physical evidence collected from the crime scene.
when dna testing was conducted years later, results excluded aguirre and repeatedly pointed to the victims' relative. based on this new evidence, the 2016 florida supreme court unanimously overturned his wrongful conviction. nonetheless, prosecutors sought to retry him again: with the death penalty.
eventually prosecutors agreed to drop all criminal charges against aguirre. he was surrounded by his family and supporters at the exoneration, and was released from custody later in the day. aguirre spent 14 years in prison. he was legally assisted by the innocent project.
the innocence project was founded in 1992 to exonerate the wrongly convicted through dna testing and criminal justice reform. their mission is to free the staggering number of innocent people who remain incarcerated, and help reform the system responsible for their unjust imprisonment.
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