Most exonerations ever in 2015

Researchers found that 149 people were cleared in 2015 for crimes they didn't commit -- more than any other year in history, according to The Huffington Post. The details were part of  a report published Wednesday by the National Registry of Exonerations, a project of the University of Michigan Law School. 

By comparison, 139 people were exonerated in 2014. The number has risen most years since 2005, when 61 people were cleared of crimes they didn't commit. 

“Historically, this is a very large number for a type of event that we’d like to think almost never happens or just doesn’t happen,” Samuel Gross, a University of Michigan law professor who helped write the report, told The Huffington Post.

The men and women who were cleared last year had, on average, served 14.5 years in prison. Some had been on death row. Others were younger than 18 when they were convicted or had intellectual disabilities. All had been swept into a justice system that's supposed to be based on the presumption of innocence, but failed.

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