People we’ve helped exonerate

Eric Wright was released from prison on October 1, 2025, after serving nearly 36 years for a crime he didn't commit. Eric Wright on the day of his release with TIP staffImage source: TIP Staff Case history In the early morning hours of October 15, 1989, two men robbed a Circle K convenience store on Lamar Avenue in Memphis. The clerk, Stella Oakes, was shot twice and left paralyzed from the chest down. Her boyfriend, Ricky Coleman, who was there helping her, was shot in the face. Both survived, but their lives were permanently altered by what happened that night. One week later, Memphis police stopped Eric Wright and his younger brother on a moped several miles from the crime scene. A backpack nearby contained a pistol, but it was a .22-caliber weapon, and the crime had been committed with a .32. Neither Eric nor his brother said anything to police. Fingerprints recovered from the crime scene did not match either of them. There was no physical evidence connecting Eric to the robbery. What there was, the only thing, was a single cross-racial eyewitness identification, made under circumstances that would later be recognized as deeply compromised. When detectives showed Stella…

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