(Associated Press) As four men sat in prison for a murder they didn't commit, records show that state investigators sent proof of their innocence to a North Carolina prosecutor, but he never revealed it to the convicted men.
He didn't have to. Nothing in North Carolina's legal standards requires a prosecutor to turn over evidence of innocence after a conviction.
The four, along with a fifth who also was convicted, were eventually cleared through the work of a commission that investigates innocence -- but not until they'd served years in prison, including several years when a judge says the prosecutor and sheriff "did nothing to follow up on" another man's confession.
Some people now are calling for change.