Those inmates freed from death row; upon what basis were their verdicts overturned? A lot of overturned verdicts are based on procedural errors of some kind in the trial. In many of them, the state could try the defendant again and (presumably without the errors) get a conviction again. The problem prosecutors have with that is that oftentimes the original witnesses, evidence, etc are no longer around. In order to know how many of the 80 were actually innocent, one would have to know the basis upon which each was overturned and have a full familiarity with the evidence produced at the original trial.
Vacating a conviction does not necessarily mean the person was innocent.
In the US you don’t need to prove innocence, you need to prove guilt. You are most likely right, some of those overturned verdicts may have been because of procedural errors, but some are innocent people who were wrongly convicted (actually, the number I got for people released from death row was 130, the 80 were listed as “wrongfully convicted”)
Of course, I don’t have all of their stories, nor do I have time to research all of them, but I did find a few:
Ray Krone, released in 2002. Spent 10 years in prison in Arizona, including time on death row, for a murder he did not commit. DNA testing proved his innocence.
Madison Hobley, Aaron Patterson, Stanley Howard and LeRoy Orange, pardoned in 2003. Sent to death row on the basis of “confessions” extracted through the use of torture by former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge and other Area 2 police officers in Chicago. They were pardoned by outgoing Governor George Ryan, who also commuted the remaining 167 death sentences in Illinois to life imprisonment.
Jonathon Hoffman, exonerated in 2007. Convicted and sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of a jewelry store owner. During Hoffman’s first trial, the state’s key witness, Johnell Porter, made undisclosed deals with the prosecutors for testifying against his cousin. Porter has since recanted his testimony, stating that he lied in order to get back at his cousin for stealing money from him.
Juan Melendez, exonerated in 2002. Juan, who could not afford an attorney, was convicted and sentenced to death within a week even though there was no physical evidence against him. His conviction rested on the testimony of two questionable witnesses–a police informant with an unsavory criminal record and a co-defendant who was threatened with the electric chair but who ultimately received a sentence of two years probation after he testified against Juan at trial and after Juan was convicted and sentenced to death. ad it not been for the fortuitous discovery of a transcript of the taped confession of the real killer sixteen years after Juan was sentenced to death, he almost certainly would have been executed.
If you convict an innocent person and put him in prison, you can release him later. You can’t bring someone back from the dead if you wrongfully convict and then execute.
By the way, for the record, I am not saying Troy Davis was innocent. I am disagreeing with the death penalty on principle.
