Non-IPNO exonerees

Years transpired between initial arrest and exoneration - 16
Cause of Wrongful Conviction - Improper and Invalidated Forensic Science 
Exoneration Date - February 15, 2008

Kennedy Brewer was 21 years old when he was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1995 murder and rape of his girlfriend's three-year-old daughter in Noxubee Parish, Mississippi. The crime for which Kennedy was convicted occurred 18 months after a nearly identical rape/murder for which Levon Brooks was sentenced to death. Kennedy's and Levon's convictions rested primarily on the testimonies of Steven Hayne and Michael West, two now widely discredited forensic doctors. Hayne performed the second autopsy on the victim in Kennedy's case and found previously unrecorded bite-marks. He then referred the case to his partner West, an odontologist, who testified the bite-marks matched Kennedy. The national Innocence Project took on the case, and in 2001, Kennedy was excluded as the rapist through DNA testing. Regardless, the District Attorney said he would retry the case but did nothing for five years while Kennedy sat in a county jail. The Innocence Project succeeded in having a special prosecutor appointed to remove the influence of local politics, and then found through further investigation and DNA testing that another local man was implicated in the rape. This man soon confessed to being the rapist and murderer. Kennedy was the first person exonerated through post conviction DNA testing in Mississippi when charges were dismissed against him on February 15, 2008.

Kennedy Brewer is also mentioned on the Mississippi Innocence Project and Innocence Project websites. 

Further Reading: 

Balko, Radley, "Indeed, and without a doubt: How a Mississippi dentist may have sent innocent people to jail" Reason Online 2 August 2007

Dewan, Shaila, "Despite DNA Test, A Case is Retried" The New York Times. 6 September 2007.   

Farish, Jennifer, "Three Days From Freedom: Mississippi Innocence Project Contributes to Exonerations." University of Mississipi Newsdesk. 29 July 2008.

Mott Coffey, John, "DNA evidence set clear two Noxubee County men convicted of rape and murder" The Commercial Dispatch