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It is now broadly accepted that the judicial review provided to death-penalty cases in the United States has been inadequate to prevent the execution of at least some prisoners who were wrongly convicted and sentenced to death. Some cases with strong evidence of innocence include: Carlos DeLuna (Texas, convicted 1983, executed 1989)
“There is a wide array of blunders that can cause erroneous convictions in capital cases,” said Michael Radelet, a death penalty scholar and sociologist at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Since 1973, at least 200 people have been exonerated from death row in the U.S., according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). A 2014 study estimated that at least 4% of those sentenced to death are innocent.
Since 1973, 200 former death-row prisoners have been exonerated of all charges related to the wrongful convictions that had put them on death row. At Issue It is now clear that innocent defendants will be convicted and sentenced to death with some regularity as long as the death penalty exists.
According to the report, both implicit bias and overt racism influence the use of the death penalty in the US with judges, jurors, experts, defense attorneys, and prosecutors, at times, exhibiting explicitly racially biased behavior.
Death Penalty Cases. We represent a number of people on death row with strong claims of innocence, and, over the years, have helped free those facing execution for crimes they did not commit. Learn More.
As of February 2021, the Death Penalty Information Center has recorded 185 instances, from 29 diferent US states, in which individuals were exonerated after being wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death since the resumption of capital punishment in 1973.
The death penalty is wrong even if the accused is guilty, because the punishment is final and disproportionately wielded against working-class, Black, brown and/or neurodivergent people.
Examples of wrongful convictions. North Carolina: Henry McCollum and Leon Brown, charges dismissed in 2014. The two brothers were 19 and 15 and both men were intellectually disabled when they confessed to rape and murder. They maintained their innocence since trial, saying they did not know they were signing a confession.
The NRE exoneration data reveals at least 13 exonerations that involved the wrongful use of the death penalty. In at least six of the wrongful homicide convictions, prosecutors had sought the death penalty at trial. In another, an innocent defendant pled guilty to avoid the death penalty.