May 12th, 2011

A Utah woman was released earlier this week after spending 17 years in prison for a murder she did not commit. Debra Brown left the Utah State Prison in the pouring rain on Monday, May 9, 2011, the day after Mother’s Day. Brown was the first person to be exonerated under a 2008 Utah law allowing judges to consider factual innocence in addition to scientific testing when deciding wrongful conviction cases. Brown was accused of murdering her boss in 1993, but in light of factual innocence demonstrating that she had a strong alibi during the time the crime was committed, her conviction was overturned. Her children were waiting to greet her when she was released from prison and in addition to spending time with them, she intends to go fishing and get baptized in the coming days. The state will pay her $570,000 as restitution for her wrongful conviction.