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What Is Exculpatory Evidence?

Exculpatory evidence is any information that could prove a defendant’s innocence or reduce their punishment. Under the law, especially the landmark Brady v. Maryland (1963) ruling, prosecutors are required to disclose this kind of evidence to the defense. Failing to do so is a direct violation of due process, and it happens far too often.

How Suppression Happens

Suppression of exculpatory evidence can be:

• Intentional – prosecutors or police knowingly withhold evidence that favors the defendant.
• Negligent – due to poor case management or failure to investigate, critical evidence is lost or ignored.
• Systemic – institutional practices that reward convictions over truth lead to shortcuts and cover-ups.

The result is the same: an innocent person goes to prison.

In Leslie Vass’s Case

Leslie Vass was only 17 when he was convicted of a robbery he didn’t commit. Key facts, including information that could have cleared his name, were never presented to the defense. It wasn’t until years later, when Leslie educated himself in law and uncovered the truth, that the real story came to light.

If the right evidence had been disclosed early on, Leslie would never have lost nearly a decade of his life behind bars, and decades more fighting to clear a record that should have never existed.

Why It Still Matters Today

Suppression of exculpatory evidence isn’t just a past mistake, it’s a present-day crisis. Organizations like the Innocence Project and the National Registry of Exonerations continue to uncover cases where prosecutors ignored or buried key facts. This isn’t just misconduct, it’s a violation of constitutional rights.

When the truth is hidden, justice is impossible.

What Needs to Change

• Mandatory transparency and evidence audits in criminal cases
• Stronger penalties for prosecutors who violate disclosure laws
• Independent review boards to investigate claims of suppression
• Statewide databases of wrongful conviction patterns and prosecutorial misconduct

Conclusion: The Truth Should Never Be Optional

Leslie Vass’s story is living proof of what happens when the truth is suppressed. His case is not an exception, it’s a warning. If we want real justice, we must hold accountable those who bury evidence, distort facts, or treat convictions as trophies.

Official Misconduct

Official misconduct occurs when public officials, especially police officers or prosecutors, abuse their authority for personal, political, or institutional gain, or to cover up wrongdoing. This abuse can destroy lives, deny justice, and undermine public trust in the legal system.

Types of Official Misconduct

1. Police Misconduct
   • Falsifying Reports: Writing false narratives or omitting exculpatory evidence.
   • Fabricating Evidence: Planting or altering evidence to support a charge.
   • Excessive Force: Using physical violence that exceeds what is legally permitted.
   • Illegal Searches & Seizures: Violating Fourth Amendment rights by conducting warrantless or unreasonable searches.
   • Racial Profiling: Targeting individuals based on race or ethnicity rather than suspicion.
   • Failure to Intervene: Officers who witness misconduct but do nothing.
2. Prosecutorial Misconduct
   • Withholding Exculpatory Evidence (Brady Violations): Failing to turn over evidence that might prove a defendant’s innocence.
   • Improper Arguments: Misleading the jury or appealing to prejudice during trial.
   • Charging Without Probable Cause: Pursuing charges not supported by sufficient evidence.
   • Witness Coercion or Coaching: Pressuring witnesses to testify falsely or unethically.
   • Selective Prosecution: Targeting individuals for prosecution based on race, political views, or personal bias.

Real-World Examples

• Leslie Vass (Maryland): Wrongfully convicted at 17 after a photo lineup misidentification. Prosecutors failed to verify key evidence. He spent years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.
• Kalief Browder (New York): Arrested at 16 and held in Rikers Island for three years without trial. Prosecutors delayed the case intentionally while knowing there was no viable evidence. Kalief later died by suicide due to the trauma.
• Michael Morton (Texas): Served 25 years for his wife’s murder. Prosecutors suppressed exculpatory evidence proving his innocence. He was later exonerated by DNA evidence.

Laws That Apply to Official Misconduct

• 18 U.S. Code § 242 – Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law
  Makes it a crime for anyone acting under official authority to deprive someone of constitutional rights.
• 42 U.S. Code § 1983 – Civil Action for Deprivation of Rights
  Allows individuals to sue state actors (like police or prosecutors) for violating civil rights.
• Brady v. Maryland (373 U.S. 83, 1963)
  Requires prosecutors to turn over any exculpatory evidence to the defense. Failure to do so is a violation of due process.
• Giglio v. United States (405 U.S. 150, 1972)
  Requires the prosecution to disclose any agreements with witnesses or credibility issues that could affect their testimony.
• STATE LAW EXAMPLE: Oregon Law ORS 162.405 – Official Misconduct in the First Degree
  Applies when a public servant knowingly fails to perform a duty or commits an unauthorized act.

Constitutional Protections Against Misconduct

1. Fourth Amendment
   Protects against unlawful searches and seizures.
2. Fifth Amendment
   Protects against self-incrimination and guarantees due process.
3. Sixth Amendment
   Guarantees the right to a fair trial, including the right to confront witnesses and receive effective legal representation.
4. Fourteenth Amendment
   Applies due process and equal protection guarantees to state and local governments.

Why It Matters

When public servants betray their oath, the damage is not just to the individual, it’s to the fabric of justice. Wrongful convictions, racial bias, retaliatory charges, and coverups leave lasting harm. Exposing these patterns and holding officials accountable is crucial for restoring faith in the justice system.

What Can You Do?

• Demand transparency and accountability from police departments and DA offices.
• Support civilian oversight boards and reform legislation.
• If you or someone you know was harmed by official misconduct, explore:
  • Filing a civil rights lawsuit
  • Submitting a bar complaint (for prosecutors) in the state of the misconduct.
  • Reporting to state attorney general or DOJ Civil Rights Division

When people hear the word “expungement,” they often assume that everything just… goes away. That the record disappears. That the slate is wiped clean. That life can return to normal.

But for those who have lived through wrongful convictions, like Leslie Vass, who had his record expunged not once, but twice by judges, the truth is far more complicated.

Expungement is supposed to offer relief. It’s supposed to seal or erase criminal records from public view. But in reality, it often becomes just another legal hurdle in a long, exhausting journey.

Still Marked by a System That Failed Him

Leslie Vass was exonerated, and expungement orders were granted by the courts. But decades later, his name is still tied to a record that should have been erased. Employers, housing systems, and background checks still surface misinformation. Digital databases don’t always update. News articles remain. Government systems “forget” to clean things up. And too often, nobody is held responsible for the failure to follow through.

That’s the ugly truth: even expungement isn’t respected the way it should be. The system that falsely branded you a criminal in the first place is often the same system dragging its feet when it comes to undoing the harm.

For the Wrongfully Convicted, Expungement Isn’t a Reset – It’s Another Battle

For many survivors of wrongful convictions:

• Expungement is delayed or denied without explanation.
• Records show up years later in federal or third-party databases.
• Police and courts may treat expungement like a suggestion, not an order.
• The social and psychological effects of the original charge never truly disappear.

And yet, expungement is often painted as the end of the story.

But as Leslie’s experience shows, it’s just another chapter in a long fight for dignity, restoration, and the right to move on.

So What Needs to Change?

• Enforcement of expungement orders across all databases and agencies
• Transparency in how records are stored, shared, and updated
• Automatic expungement in wrongful conviction cases
• Oversight to ensure compliance by public and private background systems
• Accountability for the damage caused by failure to honor expungement

Leslie Vass’s story is living proof: you can beat the charge, get the conviction overturned, even get a judge’s order to clear your name – and still find your past haunting you.

Justice isn’t just about what happens in the courtroom. It’s about what happens after, too.

Let’s keep fighting to make sure expungement means what it’s supposed to mean: freedom.

Wrongfully Convicted, But Never Broken: The Story of Leslie Vass and Others Still Fighting Back

Every year, innocent people are arrested, charged, and convicted for crimes they didn’t commit. For some, like Leslie Vass, that injustice results in years, even decades, behind bars, stripped of freedom, dignity, and a future.

Leslie Vass was a teenager when his nightmare began. A faulty lineup, rushed decisions, and ignored facts led to his conviction for a crime he did not commit. After serving over seven years in prison, he was eventually exonerated, but by then, the damage was deep. And he is not alone.

Wrongful convictions don’t just happen in isolation. They are often the result of:

• Official misconduct (police or prosecutorial abuse of power)
• False or misleading forensic evidence
• Eyewitness misidentification
• Coerced confessions
• Suppression of exculpatory evidence
• Inadequate legal defense

These cases can leave permanent scars, emotionally, financially, and socially. Jobs are lost. Families are torn apart. Mental health deteriorates. And too often, no one is held accountable.

The Innocence Project, founded in 1992 by Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck at Cardozo School of Law, exonerates the wrongly convicted through DNA testing. Since its inception over two decades ago, the Innocence Project has restored liberty to hundreds of innocent people. According to the Innocence Project, mistaken eyewitness testimony is the leading cause of wrongful convictions. More than three-quarters of wrongful convictions later overturned by DNA evidence relied on faulty eyewitness evidence. Overturned cases also confirmed that black people were overwhelmingly more likely to be wrongfully convicted, even when facts and evidence proved they were innocent.

Flashback to 1975, well before the establishment of the Innocence Project. Seventeen-year-old Leslie Vass, a senior in high school and star basketball player, made a routine trip to his neighborhood pharmacy in Baltimore, MD to buy a newspaper for his mother. This simple trip forever altered the course of Leslie’s life. A delivery driver for the pharmacy identified Leslie as one of the assailants who had robbed him at gunpoint four months earlier. Based on this driver’s erroneous identification, Leslie was arrested, charged as an adult, and subsequently convicted of armed robbery at a trial by judge.

In addition to the mistaken identification, Leslie knows without a doubt that he was convicted due to his race and collusion among the judge, prosecutor, and even his attorney. Leslie had the misfortune to get trapped in two of the largest contributors to wrongful convictions—his race and mistaken eyewitness testimony.

Leslie’s aspirations for graduation and a pro basketball career came to a screeching halt. Sentenced to twenty years as a first-time offender, with no prior criminal record, he was placed in the Maryland State Penitentiary, a maximum security facility. He was thrown into an environment where predators prowled for weak, unaware individuals.

Like all wrongfully convicted comrades, he never envisioned being imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. While he woke up every day to the reality of being in prison, he would not let himself fall into the prison mentality. Leslie knew he did not belong there; he had not committed the act he was accused of. He was sickened to hear other inmates brag about their crimes. He earned his high school diploma through the GED course, and enrolled in the prison’s college program, working toward a sociology degree.

Attorneys failed Leslie, and there were not yet any innocence projects or other advocacy groups for the wrongfully convicted, so it became clear to him that the only way to regain his freedom was to understand the system and laws that had robbed him of that precious freedom. His fate was in his own hands. Leslie took the paralegal training course offered at the Maryland State Penitentiary, obtained the pertinent case records concerning his case, and began to research, prepare, and submit his post-conviction motions. He became well known within the prison community as learned in law. He was instrumental in starting a legal clinic in the prison, applying his developing legal skills to assist other inmates and even prison staff.

Leslie knew that each meeting with the parole commission was futile; in order to be granted parole he would have to admit guilt and express remorse. Like so many other innocent prisoners, Leslie fell into the parole paradox—either compromise his principles and admit to a crime he didn’t do to obtain parole, or stand by his innocence and be denied parole. Leslie refused to accept responsibility for a crime he did not commit; therefore, parole was never granted.

In 1982, after seven years of imprisonment, a witness came forward with evidence that Leslie was not the robber. Leslie obtained a photo of the person actually responsible for the robbery. A ray of hope surfaced for Leslie; he sent this photo to the Baltimore Public Defenders’ office in hopes of getting a new trial. Two more years passed. Finally, the delivery driver, after being shown the photo of the actual perpetrator, admitted that he wrongly identified Leslie. It boggles the mind to imagine the guilt of the delivery driver, knowing Leslie served time for almost 10 years based on his erroneous identification.

Leslie was released from prison in 1984. Then-Governor Harry Hughes wrote him a letter in August, approving his application for pardon and urging him to seek compensation for his time served. “I would like to express my sincere regret for the terrible injustice you have suffered. It must have been devastating to spend ten precious years in jail for a crime which you did not commit.” Acknowledgement of the miscarriage of justice was appreciated, but the governor’s words were hollow at best. At a time when Leslie should have been making connections, contributing to society, and learning valuable life lessons, he was stuck in prison, fighting for the freedom that most people take for granted.

Leslie was the first Maryland exoneree to petition the state for compensation for his years spent wrongfully imprisoned. He received $250,000 from the State of Maryland in 1987 (far less than his requested $5 million), paid in installments over eight years.

Had Leslie been released on parole, he would have qualified for support in areas such as job training, counseling, and housing assistance. Since he was released after an overturned conviction, however, there was no such support. Leslie may have been age 28 upon release from prison, but essentially he was still 17, having had ten years of a critical life phase stolen. Suspended in the adolescence mindset and trying to make up for lost years, Leslie squandered his money. Add to that a denied opportunity to learn fiscal skills, plus a lack of guidance on reentry into the world, and it was no surprise that his payout did not last.

But, at least, with a pardon from the governor and his record expunged, Leslie would be able to move on with his life, obtain employment, and reintegrate himself into society, right?

WRONG!

The armed robbery conviction became a barnacle, an unwelcome parasite attached permanently to Leslie. Despite promises that the record would be expunged, the state failed to erase the erroneous conviction. Potential employers discovered this conviction during background checks, concluded that Leslie was a violent ex-con, and refused to hire him. As a result, Leslie struggled to find and keep steady employment.

Talk about adding insult to injury. Not only was Leslie wronged by the robbery conviction, but the failure of the state to rid his record was perhaps the real crime, lingering and challenging Leslie’s attempts to reclaim his life. He has carried this burden for years, fighting all the while to prove the conviction did not apply. In 1999, Leslie filed and won a lawsuit against the state of Maryland for its non-compliance in expunging his record. He received an award of $50,000, but, lo and behold, the conviction records remained, haunting Leslie to this day.

A devastating effect of this non-expungement occurred in 2004, after Leslie had made strides to reestablish his life, obtain meaningful employment, secure housing, and start a family. His estranged wife accused Leslie of stabbing her. The judge used the erroneous criminal record to deny bail, despite Leslie’s presentation of Governor Hughes’ letter and orders of expungement. Although acquitted of this stabbing charge, Leslie lost another 16 months of his life in jail pending trial. His home and possessions were gone, and his young children were forced into foster care.

“It still impacts my life. It’s really hard, at my age now, to have my criminal record pop up when I try to find employment in positions for which I am trained. It’s traumatic that from the age of 17 on I am still dealing with the same situation from an unlawful imprisonment case.”

The criminal justice system failed Leslie at every turn. He was innocent, yet unable to escape the system. Despite these hurdles, Leslie refuses to let the negative experiences define his life. His goal now is to help young people avoid the life that he spent behind bars. He particularly wants the state of Maryland to stop the prosecution of youth as adults. “My passion is to have Maryland’s law that automatically charges juveniles as adults changed, which is what happened to me. An arrest and conviction as a juvenile will follow you for the rest of your life. I’m tired of seeing youth get charged as adults when they’ve never had a life.”

Leslie, now age 60, refers to himself as the “Grandfather of Exonerees.” He welcomes the opportunity to convey his story, eager to help others avoid similar situations. No one could fault him for feeling angry and resentful about the injustices he has endured, but he has risen above those acrimonious emotions, using his experience as a springboard to help others. He is an activist and speaker on wrongful imprisonment with Life After Exoneration and the Mid-Atlantic Innocent Project. “I’m not bitter. I would like my case to be a stepping stone to help others. I was wronged, but my message is to stay as focused as possible. You can still achieve what you set out to do.” Exemplary thoughts from a man who has worked hard to overcome his obstacles. One only has to imagine the route his life would have taken absent his wrongful conviction.

Tidal Wave within—The Leslie Vass Story
https://youtu.be/G9_e3wfJBaM

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.