Not Guilty: Thirty Six Actual Cases in Which
An Innocent Man Was Convicted (1957)
by Judge Jerome Frank and Barbara Frank

Arthur O'Connell

In May 1935, twenty-six-year-old Arthur O'Connell was brought to trial in Boston for a sexual attack on a thirteen­year-old girl. Convicted on the testimony of the alleged victim and that of her thirteen-year-old companion, who testified that she had witnessed the crime, O'Connell was sentenced to a term of not less than eight and not more than twelve years. In June of the same year the "victim's" companion confessed that the crime had never occurred. O'Connell had merely stopped to talk to the girls for a moment. They had perjured themselves "just for fun." After a month's imprisonment O'Connell was released.

SOURCE

1. New Haven Register, June 14, 1935, 36:6, 7.