Neb. wrongful convictions set for 2011 trials

Associated Press - January 19, 2010 6:25 AM ET

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - A federal judge has set trial dates for lawsuits filed by five people wrongly imprisoned for a 1985 murder and later cleared by DNA evidence.

U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf has scheduled five jury trials with the first beginning in March 2011.

Thomas Winslow, JoAnn Taylor, Kathy Gonzalez, James Dean and Joseph White last year sued Gage County and officials tied to the initial murder investigation. They argue that investigators and the former county attorney manufactured evidence and coerced them into confessing to murder.

The lawsuits followed the 2008 release of DNA test results that cleared them in the rape and murder of a Beatrice woman. Investigators say Bruce Allen Smith of Oklahoma was the real killer. He died of AIDS in 1992 at the age of 30.

On the Net:

U.S. District Court of Nebraska: http://www.ned.uscourts.gov