‘I could be killed at any time’: The anguish of being wrongfully convicted of murder

Maurice Caldwell spent 20 years in prison before his wrongful conviction for a 1990 murder in San Francisco was finally overturned.Paul Abramson, a UCLA professor of psychology who was hired as an expert by Caldwell ’s legal team to assess the psychological harm Caldwell suffered, conducted 20 extensive interviews with Caldwell between 2015 and 2020, in addition to interviewing prison correctional officers and reviewing court hearings and decisions, depositions, psychological testing results and experts’ re ports.In a paper published in the  peer-reviewed Wrongful Conviction Law Review, Abramson provides an overview of the case and a comprehensive psychological analysis detailing the devastating and ongoing effects of Caldwell’s wrongful conviction and imprisonment. He also examines the historically contentious relations between police and communities of color and asks why corr upt and abusive officers rarely face punishment for their actions.Caldwell ’s 1991 conviction was overturned on March 28, 2010. The San Francisco District Attorney’s Office dismissed the case, and Caldwell was released from prison in 2011. He settled his decade-long civil suit againstthe county and city of San Francisco, the police department and one SFPD  officer just weeks before the scheduled start of the trial, and this month, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors approved an $8 million payout to Caldwell, who was 23 at the time of his conviction.‘Appalling injustice’: The w...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news