By Theodoric Meyer and Christie Thompson, ProPublica

In 1991, an unemployed printer named David Ranta was convicted of killing a Hasidic rabbi in Brooklyn.

Last week, Ranta was released from the maximum-security prison in which he'd spent nearly 22 years, after almost every piece of evidence used to convict him fell away. The New York Times reported that the lead detectives on the case "broke rule after rule" — they "kept few written records, coached a witness and took Mr. Ranta's confession under what a judge described as highly dubious circumstances."

Last Friday, just a day after he was released, Ranta suffered a serious heart attack.

With Ranta's case in mind, we've rounded up some of the best reporting on wrongful convictions.

CASE FLAWS

Trial By Fire, The New Yorker, September 2009 In 2004, Texas executed Cameron Todd Willingham, an unemployed mechanic from Corsicana who had been convicted of killing his three children 12 years earlier by setting fire to his house. But as The New Yorker's David Grann reports, the arson investigation findings that the prosecutors used to convict Willingham were based on "junk science," according to a highly acclaimed fire investigator. The jailhouse informant who testified against him was unstable and had a history of addiction and mental illness. The year after Willingham's execution, a fire scientist hired by a state commission concurred that the original investigators had no scientific basis for claiming the fire was arson.

Are Memphis Prosecutors Trying to Send an Innocent Man Back to Death Row?, The Nation, March 2013 Timothy Terrell McKinney is facing his third trial for the murder of an off-duty police officer in Memphis. His first case was overturned after the prosecution suppressed evidence that questioned McKinney's guilt. Multiple testimonies now suggest it would be near impossible for McKinney to have committed the murder. But as one local put it, "when it's a police officer killed here in Memphis, you know, they quick to nail somebody."

Defendants Left Unaware of Flaws Found in Cases, The Washington Post, April 2012 In the 1990s, reviews by the Justice Department found shoddy testing in FBI labs was producing unreliable evidence. But that news failed to make its way to defendants who may have been wrongfully convicted based on flawed forensics. "Hundreds of defendants nationwide remain in prison or on parole for crimes that might merit exoneration [or] a retrial," the Washington Post found.

The Hardest Cases: When Children Die, Justice Can Be Elusive, ProPublica, June 2011 Our 2011 investigation with Frontline and NPR found mistakes made by coroners and medical examiners led to the wrongful conviction of numerous babysitters, parents and others for murdering children. Ernie Lopez may be one such case: he was convicted for murdering a 6-month-old girl, despite evidence that later suggested she may have died from a rare blood disease. (Lopez later agreed to a plea deal for a reduced charge.)

Death Row Justice Derailed, The Chicago Tribune, November 1999 The first part of an epic investigation by Ken Armstrong and Steve Mills of how Illinois had sent innocent men to death row. "Capital punishment in Illinois," Armstrong and Mills reported, "is a system so riddled with faulty evidence, unscrupulous trial tactics and legal incompetence that justice has been forsaken, a Tribune investigation has found." The series helped convince Gov. George Ryan to put a moratorium on the death penalty in Illinois the next year, which remains in effect today.

House of Screams, The Chicago Reader, 1990 Over 20 years ago, journalist John Conroy broke a story that shook the foundation of Chicago's criminal justice system. Conroy unearthed the routine torture tactics used by then-police commander Jon Burge — from suffocation to electric shocks — that resulted in numerous false confessions and wrongful convictions.

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Al Jazeera examines the impact of America's high incarceration rate on its penal system and on poor and minority communities. There are more prisoners in the US than any other nation in the world, with the U.S. making up five percent of the world's population, but accounts for 25 percent of its prison population. In just the last three decades, the number held in U.S. federal prisons has spiked by nearly 80 percent.

"There has been in this country over the last 30 years a relentless upward climb in the incarcerated population and disturbing as the situation is with the federal prison system, that is really only the tip of the iceberg because the federal prison system is only about 10 percent of the total number of people incarcerated in this country. On any given day, we have about 2.3 million people behind bars in federal, state and local facilities."

- David Fathi, ACLU National Prison Project

The number of inmates in U.S. federal prisons has increased from about 25,000 in 1980 to 219,000 in 2012, according to a report by the US Congressional Research Service.

The report says the federal prison system was 39 percent over its capacity back in 2011...and the situation is worse for high and medium security male facilities.

High-security prisons were overcrowded by 51 percent, while medium security prisons were overcrowded by 55 percent in 2011.

A report issued by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), states that overcrowding has contributed to worse safety and security conditions for both inmates and staff.

The overcrowded facilities have contributed to a multibillion dollar demand for private prisons. The industry claims it is helping the government save money. But others argue that for-profit prisons only increase the incentive to incarcerate more people.

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New York News | NYC Breaking News

Early Sunday morning, firefighters rushed to put out a two-alarm blaze at the Church of St. Luke and St. Matthew, located on the border between Prospect Heights and Fort Greene. Investigators believe that someone poured gasoline around the building's front doors — two canisters were found nearby — and lit the fire at around 3:30 in the morning. Three Occupy Sandy volunteers were asleep inside at the time (the church has served as one of the movement's headquarters since the hurricane), but no injuries were reported.

NYT:

"The Rev. Christopher Ballard, the church’s curate, said the flames had caused “significant damage,” burning the wooden doors of two entrances and charring the foyer. The sanctuary, he said, remained largely unscathed. No one was injured.

Though the police said the cause remained under investigation, Father Ballard said the fire had been fueled by a pair of gasoline containers donated to Occupy Sandy volunteers, who had used the church as a staging area for hurricane relief efforts. The gasoline was intended to be used in a generator for a Christmas party in the Rockaways on Sunday night. Father Ballard said the containers had been put outside when the church was cleared of most donated materials to make way for Christmas services.

“Somebody decided to take those canisters, dump them on the doors of the church and set the gas on fire,” he said. “We don’t know why someone would do this, what darkness is in someone’s heart.”

Father Ballard noted that the church had been rebuilt after a devastating fire in 1914. Councilwoman Letitia James, who represents the area, expressed outrage at what she called a hateful arson. “We will find the sick individual who committed this crime,” she said, standing outside the church."

100 firefighters worked to put out the blaze.

NY1:

Members of the congregation were worried for what the church contained: supplies and Christmas gifts for New Yorkers affected by Hurricane Sandy.

Since the storm struck on October 29, thousands of volunteers, included members of the Occupy Sandy movement, have come to the church to be part of relief efforts.

On Saturday, a group of volunteers wrapped holiday gifts for children affected by Sandy at the church.

"We had about 100 volunteers in the church yesterday, wrapping gifts for children who were displaced by the storm," said Michael Sniffen, the church's rector.

"We've been sending people out to affected areas. We're sending out hot food and clothes, blankets, cleaning supplies, baby supplies, baby food, baby toys," said LJ Marquez, an Occupy Sandy volunteer.

Church members and volunteers said the fire will not hinder their efforts. On Sunday, volunteers were sent to another site, St. John's Episcopal Church in Fort Hamilton.

The Sandy volunteers have pledged to work 7 days a week during the holidays to continue to bring hot meals to Sandy victims in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.

Volunteers who want to help Occupy Sandy can go to one of the group's bases, with no need to call beforehand. For more information, visit interoccupy.net/occupysandy.

The Church of St. Luke And St. Matthew will reopen for Christmas Eve services at 10 PM and Christmas Day services at 10 AM on December 25th.

Occupy Sandy will not be taking donations until after December 27th, as was previously scheduled.

Police in Arizona are investigating whether self-poisoning may have caused the death of former Wall Street trader Michael Marin in a Phoenix courtroom on Thursday. “They are leaning towards that,” said Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Jeff Sprong. “We cannot verify that at this point, and we’re not going to be able to until the toxicology report comes back in two weeks.” The 53-year-old former Wall Streeter was found guilty of arson Thursday. Marin was heavily in his debt, and he quickly came under suspicion when his $3.5 million Phoenix-area mansion went up in flames in July 2009. In video of Marin taken minutes after the verdict, Marin claps his hands to his face and appears to “put something in his mouth,” Sprong said.

[Via KTVK]

Lawmakers backed drastic cuts in wages, pensions and jobs on Sunday as the price of a 130 billion euro ($170 billion) bailout by the European Union and International Monetary Fund to avert a messy default that would send shockwaves through the euro zone.

The cuts include a 22 percent reduction in the minimum wage and 150,000 jobs from the public sector workforce by 2015.

Scenes of running battles between police and rioters and flames engulfing cinemas, shops and banks underscored a sense of deepening turmoil in the country after more than four years of recession and two of punishing austerity.

The riots spread to Greece's second city of Thessaloniki, towns across the country and the islands of Crete and Corfu. In all, 150 shops were looted in the capital and 93 buildings set ablaze, wrecked or seriously damaged.

Occupy United claimed that 15 of the burned buildings were banks.

About 100 people - including 68 police - were wounded and 130 detained.

Athens city authorities said some of the wrecked buildings were of particular cultural, historic and architectural value.

The Attikon cinema, housed in a neo-classical building dating from 1870, was left a blackened shell.

The rioters were a minority, say various reports, yet others claim they numbered over 100,000 and spoke to the groundswell of anger among Greeks who say their living standards are already collapsing and more austerity will only deepen their misery.

Unemployment in Greece reached 20.9 percent in November, and half of young Greeks are jobless.

Meanwhile, on Twitter, photographs began circulating that identify several members of Greek parliament who were relaxing and watching a football game allegedly as the city of Athens burned.