While the average time spent in prison for all of the exonerees in the National Registry of Exonerations is just over nine years, there have been some prisoners who spent an extraordinary amount of time imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. The Registry calculates prison time from the date of conviction. Therefore, our calculations exclude time spent incarcerated prior to conviction. The following is a list of the exonerees who spent at least 25 years in prison prior to exoneration.
Name Time Incarcerated Sentence Incarcerated State
Paul Goodwin 32 years, 4 months, 20 days Life - Oklahoma
Ismael Vasquez 30 years, 8 months, 0 days Term of Years - Ohio
Detroy Livingston 31 years, 5 months, 19 days Term of Years - New York
Carlton Lewis 30 years, 11 months, 30 days Term of Years - New York
Lee Harris 31 years, 0 months, 9 days Term of Years - Illinois
Thomas James 31 years, 3 months, 15 days Term of Years - Florida
Joaquin Ciria 31 years, 1 months, 22 days Term of Years - California
Tony Hopps 31 years, 1 months, 28 days Life - Florida
Emerson Stevens 30 years, 10 months, 6 days Life - Virginia
Carlton Roman 30 years, 9 months, 20 days Term of Years - New York
Andrew Swainson 31 years, 2 months, 28 days Life without parole - Pennsylvania
Darrell Jones 31 years, 2 months, 19 days Life without parole - Massachusetts
Victor Rosario 31 years, 3 months, 13 days Life - Massachusetts
William Vasquez 30 years, 8 months, 28 days Term of Years - New York
Amaury Villalobos 30 years, 8 months, 27 days Term of Years - New York
Reginald Adams 30 years, 8 months, 27 days Life without parole - Louisiana
Stanley Wrice 30 years, 6 months, 22 days Life - Illinois
Andre Davis 31 years, 5 months, 13 days Life - Illinois
Lawrence McKinney 31 years, 2 months, 2 days Term of Years - Tennessee
Richard Phillips 30 years, 6 months, 22 days Death - Virginia
Stearns Kendall Abbott 30 years, 6 months, 5 days Death - Massachusetts
Eron Shelman 30 years, 2 months, 6 days Life - Michigan
Perry Lott 30 years, 3 months, 30 days Life - Oklahoma
George Toca 29 years, 9 months, 13 days Life without parole - Louisiana
Alfredo Gonzalez 30 years, 3 months, 10 days Life without parole - Illinois
Reynaldo Munoz 29 years, 9 months, 20 days Term of Years - Illinois
Paul Madison 30 years, 3 months, 9 days Term of Years - Maryland
Ronald Jacobsen 30 years, 4 months, 22 days Life - Georgia
Antonio Martinez 30 years, 5 months, 22 days Life - Pennsylvania
Robert Smith 30 years, 1 months, 24 days Life without parole - Illinois
Ralph Birch 30 years, 0 months, 20 days Term of Years - Connecticut
Dean McKee 29 years, 6 months, 23 days Life - Florida
Andrew Wilson 30 years, 4 months, 2 days Life without parole - California
Leon Brown 29 years, 10 months, 6 days Death - North Carolina
Henry McCollum 29 years, 10 months, 6 days Death - North Carolina
Rickey Dale Wyatt 30 years, 5 months, 4 days Term of Years - Texas
Joseph Eastridge 30 years, 5 months, 23 days Term of Years - District of Columbia
Cornelius Dupree 30 years, 0 months, 20 days Term of Years - Texas
Bobby Ray Dixon 29 years, 9 months, 27 days Life - Mississippi
Phillip Bivens 29 years, 10 months, 10 days Life - Mississippi
Laurence Adams 30 years, 1 months, 6 days Death - Massachusetts
Charles Lee Clark 30 years, 3 months, 2 days Life - Michigan
Leroy Harris 28 years, 7 months, 10 days Term of Years - Connecticut
Herman Williams 28 years, 6 months, 17 days Life without parole - Illinois
Claude Garrett 28 years, 8 months, 20 days Life without parole - Tennessee
Carlos Jaile 28 years, 9 months, 3 days Life - Texas
Christopher Williams 29 years, 0 months, 18 days Life without parole - Pennsylvania
Shawn Henning 29 years, 2 months, 26 days Term of Years - Connecticut
Gerry Thomas 28 years, 11 months, 19 days Term of Years - Michigan
Jerome Johnson 29 years, 3 months, 19 days Life - Maryland
TOTAL: 329