The Marshall Project

I Sent an Innocent Man to Prison

A juror’s regret.

I can picture Kia now at the defense table, slumped down, doodling on a pad. I was reading his body language, and he just didn’t seem to care about what was going on. I thought, if he doesn’t care, why should we? His attitude seemed to say: Yeah, I did it.

It was my first time on a jury. I was 31, balancing two jobs while going to graduate school. It was 2009, New Orleans was infested with crime, and I remember feeling like I wanted to be part of justice. During jury selection, the prosecutors asked if I could convict someone based on the testimony of

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