Willie Earl Green

Who is Willie Earl Green?

Willie Earl Green was sent to prison in 1983 for the murder of a woman in a South Los Angeles crack house, but after a change in testimony, authorities released him from prison in March 2008.

The incriminating witness, Willie Finley, had placed Green at the scene and helped police identify him as the murderer. Mr. Finley altered his recollection, and L.A. County Superior Court Judge Stephen A. Marcus exonerated Green, stopping short of declaring him innocent, but declaring that had the jury known the new version of events, they would have not found him guilty. Susan Breyer, the forewoman of the jury who had originally found him guilty, had come to believe in his innocence and was at the prison when Green was released, stating: "I, they, took 24 years of his life."

While Green had been involved in drugs and petty crimes before imprisonment, he attributes prison to have turned his life around. While in prison he earned an Associate of Arts degree and ran life skills programs for inmates helping them with anger management and parenting skills. While Green was in prison, in 1999, his father died. Green also got married in prison.