An Oklahoma man used pandemic relief funds to have his name cleared of murder

By SEAN MURPHY
Associated Press

GREENWOOD, Ark. (AP) — An Oklahoma man who was freed after being imprisoned for decades on a murder conviction says there are more cases like his. Ricky Dority used his pandemic relief money to hire a private investigator, who worked to free him along with students from Oklahoma City University’s Innocence Project. They found inconsistencies in the state’s account of a 1997 cold-case killing, and a judge vacated the 65-year-old’s conviction in June. A national database says thousands of people have been exonerated nationwide since 1989. The cases underscore a serious problem facing a judicial system in which many old convictions resulted from overworked defense attorneys, shoddy forensic work, overzealous prosecutors and outdated investigative techniques.