Norfolk 4

The "Norfolk Four" are four men, Derek Tice, Danial Williams, Joseph J. Dick Jr., and Eric C. Wilson, who were convicted in 1999 for the 1997 rape and murder of Michelle Moore-Bosko in Norfolk, Virginia. A federal judge ruled in 2016 that the four men, who were convicted based on a false confession, were actually innocent.

The convictions of the Norfolk Four were controversial, as their convictions were largely based on confessions which the men and their supporters maintained were coerced with threats of receiving the death penalty if they did not plead guilty. Organizations such as the Innocence Project protested the convictions as a miscarriage of justice, while Moore-Bosko's parents continue to believe that all those convicted were participants in the crime.

Three of the four men, Tice, Williams, and Dick, were sentenced to one or more life sentences in prison without the possibility of parole due to their having either pleaded guilty to or having been convicted of the murder, while Wilson was convicted of rape and sentenced to 8½ years in prison. Three other men, Geoffrey A. Farris, John E. Danser, and Richard D. Pauley, Jr., were also initially charged with the crime, but the charges against them were later dropped. A fifth man, Omar Ballard, was also convicted of the crime and was sentenced to 100 years in prison, 59 of which were suspended. He is the only man whose DNA matches that found at the scene, and his confession states that he committed the crime by himself, with none of the other men involved. Forensic evidence is consistent with his story that there were no other participants.

In 2016, U.S. District Judge John A. Gibney Jr. ruled that "by any measure," the evidence showed that Williams and Dick did not commit the rape and murder to which they pleaded guilty, and that the evidence showed that "no sane human being" could convict them. Tice's conviction had by that time already been overturned, and the efforts of Wilson to be formally declared innocent were rejected by the courts because he had served his entire sentence. On March 21, 2017, the Norfolk Four were granted absolute pardons by Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe.

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