Sean Ellis, Core Research Team - National Survey

Sean is an exoneree, motivational speaker, and fierce advocate for reforms to the criminal legal system. At the age of 19, Sean was arrested for the murder of a police officer and was wrongfully convicted at his third trial, only after two juries could not reach a unanimous verdict. He was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. 

Significant police corruption and misconduct, including witness coercion, evidence tampering, and misleading forensic evidence, led to Sean’s wrongful conviction. He was fully exonerated in 2021 after spending nearly 22 YEARS in prison for a crime he did not commit and his story is now the subject of the Netflix docu-series, Trial 4.  

In 2020, he co-founded the Exoneree Network, a peer-led program funded by the New England Innocence Project, to support the practical, emotional, and spiritual reentry needs of exonerees as they process the trauma of long-term incarceration and work to rebuild their lives in freedom. 

Sean is frequently invited to speak to help spread awareness about wrongful convictions throughout New England. He spoke at NEIP’s 2020 Voices of the Innocent: Power in Community virtual event and was an exoneree storyteller at the inaugural Voices of the Innocent: Still We Rise in 2019.