Legal Question in Criminal Law in Virginia

Re: Convicted of a crime that I did not commit

Your focus is misguided. Rather than looking for particular cases as a first and foremost consideration in guiding your friend's appeal of the Virginia conviction, his appellate attorney's focus instead should be on any errors made by the court or the prosecution and which were objected to by defense counsel and preserved for the record on appeal. These errors could involve issues of law or fact related to the prosecution of the case or other issues such as juror misconduct or other improprieties which may have occurred during the course of the trial and which unfairly prejudiced the outcome of your friend's case. The appeal itself but make specific assignments of error in order to have any chance of success.

One thing further: The state clearly had some compelling evidence against your friend or he would not have been convicted beyond reasonable doubt. Prosecutors do not secure guilty verdicts simply by "pointing defendants out to witnesses on the stand, just so they can call them out," without having much more evidence that will convince the trier of fact that the one accused in fact is guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Indeed, very much more.