West Memphis Three
At the time of their arrests, Jessie Misskelley, Jr. was 17 years old, Jason Baldwin was 16 years old, and Damien Echols was 18 years old.
Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth
In addition to its high-profile representation of "Making a Murderer" subject Brendan Dassey and West Memphis Three member Damien Echols, the CWCY has played a central role in more than twenty cases that have resulted in exoneration through the post-conviction and habeas process. In 2011, CWCY faculty and students used DNA evidence to help exonerate two groups of wrongfully convicted Chicago-area teenagers in widely followed twin murder cases known as the Dixmoor Five and Englewood Four.Both cases involved multiple false confessions from teens. Those cases were nationally noted because in each case, groups of children were convicted of rape-murder charges -- despite DNA evidence excluding all of them at the time of trial -- on the basis of false confessions. Also in 2011, Center faculty and students joined a team of attorneys who won the release of three Arkansas men who had been convicted as teens in the internationally-known case of the West Memphis Three.