Dontae Sharpe

Dontae Sharpe (born 1975) is an African American from North Carolina who was wrongly convicted of murdering a white man and spent 26 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. He was exonerated and released from prison in 2019, and given a full pardon in 2021.

Sharpe was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1995 for the murder of George Radcliffe. Radcliffe had been discovered in his truck with a fatal gunshot wound on February 11, 1994. Sharpe's conviction was partially based on the testimony of 15-year old Charlene Johnson, who said that she saw Sharpe shoot Radcliffe during a drug transaction. Johnson recanted her testimony two weeks later.

Sharpe spent the next 26 years attempting to overturn the wrongful conviction; in 2019, a Superior Court judge found in evidentiary hearings that the original case was no longer sound and vacated the conviction. Sharpe was subsequently released and allowed to seek a new trial. The DA declined to prosecute, acknowledging that there was no evidence.