Wrongful execution
Wrongful execution is a
miscarriage of justice occurring when an innocent person is put to death by
capital punishment, the "death penalty." Cases of wrongful execution are
cited as an argument by opponents of capital punishment.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference">
[1]</sup>
A number of people are claimed to have been innocent victims of the death penalty.<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference">
[2]</sup><sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference">
[3]</sup> Newly-available
DNA evidence has allowed the
exoneration and release of more than 15
death row inmates since 1992 in the United States,<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference">
[4]</sup> but DNA evidence is available in only a fraction of capital cases. Others have been released on the basis of weak cases against them, sometimes involving prosecutorial misconduct; resulting in
acquittal at retrial, charges dropped, or innocence-based pardons. The
Death Penalty Information Center (U.S.) has published a list of 8 inmates "executed but possibly innocent".<sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference">
[5]</sup> At least 39 executions are claimed to have been carried out in the U.S. in the face of evidence of innocence or serious doubt about guilt.<sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference">
[6]</sup>
In the UK, reviews prompted by the
Criminal Cases Review Commission have resulted in one pardon and three exonerations for people executed between 1950 and 1953 (when the execution rate in
England and Wales averaged 17 per year), with compensation being paid.
United States
Cameron Todd Willingham was executed February, 2004, for murdering his three young children by arson at the family home in Corsicana, Texas. Nationally known fire investigator Gerald Hurst reviewed the case documents, including the trial transcriptions and an hour-long videotape of the aftermath of the fire scene and said in December 2004 that "There's nothing to suggest to any reasonable arson investigator that this was an arson fire. It was just a fire."<sup id="cite_ref-chicagotribune_12-0" class="reference">
[12]</sup> In 2010, the
Innocence Project filed a lawsuit against the State of Texas, seeking a judgment of "official oppression".<sup id="cite_ref-13" class="reference">
[13]</sup>
Statistics likely understate the actual problem of wrongful convictions because once an execution has occurred there is often insufficient motivation and finance to keep a case open, and it becomes unlikely at that point that the miscarriage of justice will ever be exposed. In the case of
Joseph Roger O'Dell III, executed in Virginia in 1997 for a rape and murder, a prosecuting attorney bluntly argued in court in 1998 that if posthumous DNA results exonerated O'Dell, "it would be shouted from the rooftops that ... Virginia executed an innocent man." The state prevailed, and the evidence was destroyed.<sup id="cite_ref-14" class="reference">
[14]</sup>
Johnny Frank Garrett of Texas was executed February, 1992, for allegedly raping and murdering a nun. In March, 2004, cold-case DNA testing identified Leoncio Rueda as the rapist and murderer of another elderly victim killed four months prior.<sup id="cite_ref-FBI_15-0" class="reference">
[15]</sup> Immediately following the nun's murder, prosecutors and police were certain the two cases were committed by the same assailant.<sup id="cite_ref-16" class="reference">
[16]</sup> In both cases, black curly head hairs were found on the victims, linked to Rueda. Previously unidentified fingerprints in the nun's room were matched to Rueda. The flawed case is explored in a 2008 documentary
The Last Word.
Jesse Tafero was convicted of murder and tortuously executed via electric chair May, 1990, in the state of Florida for the murders of two Florida Highway Patrol officers. The conviction of a codefendant was overturned in 1992 after a recreation of the crime scene indicated a third person had committed the murders.<sup id="cite_ref-cwc-tafero_17-0" class="reference">
[17]</sup>
Carlos DeLuna was executed in Texas in December 1989. Subsequent investigation<sup id="cite_ref-18" class="reference">
[18]</sup> cast profound doubt upon DeLuna's guilt for the murder of which he had been convicted.<sup id="cite_ref-19" class="reference">
[19]</sup>
Thomas and Meeks Griffin were executed in 1915 for the murder of a man involved in an interracial affair two years previously but were pardoned 94 years after execution. It is thought that they were arrested and charged because they were not wealthy enough to hire competent legal counsel and get an acquittal.<sup id="cite_ref-20" class="reference">
[20]</sup>
Chipita Rodriguez was tortuously hanged in
San Patricio County, Texas in 1863 for murdering a horse trader, and 122 years later, the
Texas Legislature passed a
resolution exonerating her.
Exonerations and pardons
Main article:
List of exonerated death row inmates
Kirk Bloodsworth was the first American to be freed from death row as a result of exoneration by DNA fingerprinting.
Ray Krone is the 100th American to have been sentenced to death and then later exonerated.
In the UK, reviews prompted by the
Criminal Cases Review Commission have resulted in one pardon and three exonerations for people that were executed between 1950 and 1953 (when the execution rate in
England and Wales averaged 17 per year), with compensation being paid.
Timothy Evans was granted a posthumous free pardon in 1966.
Mahmood Hussein Mattan was convicted in 1952 and was the last person to be hanged in
Cardiff, Wales, but had his conviction quashed in 1998.
George Kelly was hanged at
Liverpool in 1950, but had his conviction quashed by the Court of Appeal in June 2003.<sup id="cite_ref-21" class="reference">
[21]</sup>
Derek Bentley had his conviction quashed in 1998 with the appeal trial judge,
Lord Bingham, noting that the original trial judge,
Lord Goddard, had denied the defendant "the fair trial which is the birthright of every British citizen."
Colin Campbell Ross (1892 — 1922) was an
Australian wine-bar owner
executed for the rape and murder of a child which became known as
The Gun Alley Murder, despite there being evidence that he was innocent. Following his execution, efforts were made to clear his name, and in the 1990s old evidence was re-examined with modern
forensic techniques which supported the view that Ross was innocent. In 2006 an appeal for mercy was made to Victoria's Chief Justice and on 27 May 2008, the Victorian government pardoned Ross in what is believed to be an Australian legal first.<sup id="cite_ref-22" class="reference">
[22]</sup>
U.S. Mental health controversy
There has been much debate about the justification of imposing
capital punishment on individuals who have been diagnosed with
mental retardation. Some have argued that the execution of people with mental retardation constitutes cruel and unusual punishment as it pertains to the
Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.<sup id="cite_ref-ReferenceA_23-0" class="reference">
[23]</sup> And while the U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted cruel and unusual punishment to include those that fail to take into account the defendant’s degree of criminal culpability, it has not determined that executing the mentally retarded constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
This issue was addressed in the case of
Penry v. Lynaugh, in which
Johnny Paul Penry had filed a habeas corpus petition in federal district court that claimed his death sentence should be vacated because it violated his Eighth Amendment rights. His reasoning was that he suffered from mental retardation, and numerous psychologists had confirmed this to be factual, indicating that his IQ ranged from 50 to 63 and that he possessed the mental abilities of a six and a half-year-old.<sup id="cite_ref-ReferenceA_23-1" class="reference">
[23]</sup> Penry’s petition was denied by the district court, whose decision was subsequently affirmed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Penry would later appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, who ultimately ruled in a five-to-four decision that the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution did not categorically prohibit the execution of persons with mental retardation. Following the 1989 Penry ruling, sixteen states as well as the federal government passed legislation that banned the execution of offenders with mental retardation.<sup id="cite_ref-ReferenceA_23-2" class="reference">
[23]</sup>
Penry was overruled by
Atkins v. Virginia.
