This list contains names of people who were found guilty of capital crimes and placed on death row but later found to be wrongly convicted. Many of these exonerees' sentences were overturned by acquittal or pardon, but some of those listed were exonerated posthumously. [1] The state listed is that in which the conviction occurred, the year is that of release and the case is that which overturned the conviction.
This list does not include:
Six men Ankush Maruti Shinde, Rajya Appa Shinde, Ambadas Laxman Shinde, Raju Mhasu Shinde, Bapu Appa Shinde and Suresh Shinde were convicted and sentenced to death penalty in 2009 on charges of rape and murder. On 6 March 2019, the Supreme Court of India acquitted all the six death-row convicts and proclaimed them innocent. [3] [4]
In March 2023, the Supreme Court of India freed Niranaram Chetanram Chaudhary after he spent 28 years, six months and 23 days in custody, and was freed from Nagpur jail. At the time of conviction, Chaudhary was 12 years and six months. As per Indian laws, death sentence or any sentence more than three years cannot be awarded to a juvenile. [5]
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2012
2016
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1973
1998
As of February 2nd, 2024, the Innocence Database maintained by the Death Penalty Information Center shows 196 exonerations of prisoners on death row in the United States since 1973. [20]
1820
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2017 [247]
2018 [253]
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Innocence Project, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal organization that is committed to exonerating individuals who have been wrongly convicted, through the use of DNA testing and working to reform the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice. The group cites various studies estimating that in the United States between 1% and 10% of all prisoners are innocent. The Innocence Project was founded in 1992 by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld who gained national attention in the mid-1990s as part of the "Dream Team" of lawyers who formed part of the defense in the O. J. Simpson murder case.
In the United States, capital punishment is a legal penalty throughout the country at the federal level, in 27 states, and in American Samoa. It is also a legal penalty for some military offenses. Capital punishment has been abolished in 23 states and in the federal capital, Washington, D.C. It is usually applied for only the most serious crimes, such as aggravated murder. Although it is a legal penalty in 27 states, 19 of them have authority to execute death sentences, with the other 8, as well as the federal government and military, subject to moratoriums.
Juan Roberto Melendez-Colon is a public speaker and human rights activist who was wrongly convicted of murder and spent over 17 years on death row. He was released from prison on January 3, 2002, making him the 99th death row inmate in the United States to be exonerated and released from prison since 1973.
Anthony Porter was a Chicago resident known for having been exonerated in 1999 of the murder in 1982 of two teenagers on the South Side of the city. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 1983, and served 17 years on death row. He was exonerated following introduction of new evidence by Northwestern University professors and students from the Medill School of Journalism as part of their investigation for the school's Innocence Project. Porter's appeals had been repeatedly rejected, including by the US Supreme Court, and he was once 50 hours away from execution.
Kirk Noble Bloodsworth is a former Maryland waterman and the first American sentenced to death to be exonerated post-conviction by DNA testing.
Wrongful execution is a miscarriage of justice occurring when an innocent person is put to death by capital punishment. Cases of wrongful execution are cited as an argument by opponents of capital punishment, while proponents say that the argument of innocence concerns the credibility of the justice system as a whole and does not solely undermine the use of the death penalty.
The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town is a 2006 true crime book by John Grisham, his only nonfiction title as of 2020. The book tells the story of Ronald 'Ron' Keith Williamson of Ada, Oklahoma, a former minor league baseball player who was wrongly convicted in 1988 of the rape and murder of Debra Sue Carter in Ada and was sentenced to death. After serving 11 years on death row, he was exonerated by DNA evidence and other material introduced by the Innocence Project and was released in 1999.
The Exonerated is a made-for-cable television film that dramatizes the stories of six people, some of whom, were wrongfully convicted of murder and other offenses, placed on death row, and later exonerated and freed after serving varying years in prison. It was based on a successful stage play of the same name written by Erik Jensen and Jessica Blank and first aired on the former CourtTV cable television network on January 27, 2005. It is directed by Bob Balaban and was produced by Radical Media.
This is a list of notable overturned convictions in the United States.
Death row, also known as condemned row, is a place in a prison that houses inmates awaiting execution after being convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution, even in places where no special facility or separate unit for condemned inmates exists. In the United States, after an individual is found guilty of a capital offense in states where execution is a legal penalty, the judge will give the jury the option of imposing a death sentence or life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. It is then up to the jury to decide whether to give the death sentence; this usually has to be a unanimous decision. If the jury agrees on death, the defendant will remain on death row during appeal and habeas corpus procedures, which may continue for several decades.
Earl Washington Jr. is a former Virginia death-row inmate, who was fully exonerated of murder charges against him in 2000. He had been wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death in 1984 for the 1982 rape and murder of Rebecca Lyn Williams in Culpeper, Virginia. Washington has an IQ estimated at 69, which classifies him as intellectually disabled. He was coerced into confessing to the crime when arrested on an unrelated charge a year later. He narrowly escaped being executed in 1985 and 1994.
Witness to Innocence (WTI) is a non-profit organization based out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, dedicated to the effort of abolishing the death penalty in the United States. WTI began as a project of The Moratorium Campaign, led by Jené O'Keefe. Kurt Rosenberg took over in 2005 with sponsorship from Sister Helen Prejean, Witness to Innocence is the only nationwide organization composed of exonerated former death row prisoners, men who were sentenced to death only to later have their innocence revealed. WTI supports these exonerated death row survivors through semi-annual retreats and by running a speakers' bureau.
Delbert Lee Tibbs was an American man who was wrongfully convicted of murder and rape in 1974 in Florida and sentenced to death. Later exonerated, Tibbs became a writer and anti-death penalty activist.
The Illinois Innocence Project, a member of the national Innocence Project network, is a non-profit legal organization that works to exonerate wrongfully convicted people and reform the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.
The California Innocence Project is a non-profit based at California Western School of Law in San Diego, California, United States, which provides pro bono legal services to individuals who maintain their factual innocence of crime(s) for which they have been convicted. It is an independent chapter of the Innocence Project. Its mission is to exonerate wrongly convicted inmates through the use of DNA and other evidences.
Glenn Ford was convicted of murder in 1984 and released from Angola Prison in March 2014 after a full exoneration. Ford was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. He was the longest serving death row inmate in the United States to be fully exonerated before his death. He was denied compensation by the state of Louisiana for his wrongful conviction.
Nicholas James Yarris is an American writer and storyteller who spent 22 years on death row in Pennsylvania after being wrongfully convicted of murder.
Bill Clutter is an American private investigator, wrongful conviction advocate, and author. He is the co-founder of the Illinois Innocence Project and founder of the national wrongful conviction organization Investigating Innocence. His work on the Donaldson v. Central Illinois Public Service Company case led him to write the book Coal Tar: How Corrupt Politics and Corporate Greed Are Killing America's Children, which is the story of an epidemic of neuroblastoma in Taylorville, Illinois, caused by exposure to coal tar.
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