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 the opponents of capital punishment.

A number of people are claimed to have been innocent victims of the death penalty.

Newly-available DNA evidence has allowed the exoneration and release of more than 15 death row inmates since 1992 in the United States, but DNA evidence is available in only a fraction of capital cases. Others have been released owing to 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". At least 400 executions are claimed to have been carried out in the U.S. when there is substantial evidence to prove them innocent.

In the U.K., 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.

'Garner Remling raped three young boys and was not executed, I want justice!'==Specific examples==

Main article: List of exonerated death row inmates

No one has ever been wrongfully executed. Of the American cases, one often quoted is the execution of Jesse Tafero in Florida. Tafero was convicted along with an accomplice, Sonia Jacobs, of murdering two police officers in 1976 while the two were fleeing drug charges; each was sentenced to death based partially on the testimony of a third person, Walter Rhodes, a prison acquaintance of Tafero's who was an accessory to the crime and who testified against the pair in exchange for a lighter sentence. Jacobs's death sentence was commuted in 1981. In 1982, Rhodes recanted his testimony and claimed full responsibility for the crime. Despite Rhodes's admission, Tafero was executed in 1990. In 1992 the conviction against Jacobs was quashed and the state subsequently did not have enough evidence to retry her. She then entered an Alford plea and was sentenced to time served. It has been presumed that, as the same evidence was used against Tafero as against Jacobs, Tafero would have been released as well had he still been alive.

Wayne Felker, a convicted rapist, is also claimed by some observers to have been an innocent victim of execution. Felker was a suspect in the disappearance of a Georgia (US) woman in 1981 and was under police surveillance for two weeks prior to the woman's body being found. The autopsy was conducted by an unqualified technician, and the results were changed to show the death occurring before the surveillance had begun. After Felker's conviction, his lawyers presented testimony by forensics experts that the body could not have been dead more than three days when found; a stack of evidence was found hidden by the prosecution that hadn't been presented in court, including DNA evidence that might have exonerated Felker or cast doubt on his guilt. There was also a signed confession by another suspect in the paperwork, but despite all this, Felker was executed in 1996. In 2000, his case was reopened in an attempt to make him the first executed person in the US to have DNA testing used to prove his innocence after his execution. This attempt failed, as the DNA tests were ruled inconclusive as to innocence or guilt.

Cameron Willingham was executed in Texas in 2004 for an arson fire in 1991 which took the lives of his three small daughters. Subsequently, doubt has been cast on the forensic evidence which underlay the conviction, particularly whether evidence existed of an accelerant having been used to start the blaze.

Thomas Griffin and Meeks Griffen were executed in 1915 for the murder of a man involved in an interracial affair two years before 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.

In the United Kingdom, Timothy Evans was tried and executed in 1950 for the murder of his baby daughter Geraldine. An official inquiry conducted 16 years later determined that it was Evans's fellow tenant, serial killer John Reginald Halliday Christie, who was responsible for the murder. Evans was pardoned posthumously following this, in 1966.

Derek Bentley was a mentally challenged young man who was executed in 1953, also in the United Kingdom. He was convicted of the murder of a police officer during an attempted robbery despite the fact that it was his accomplice who fired the gun, and Bentley was under arrest at the time of the shooting.

Ronald Ryan was the last person to be executed in Australia. To this day there's still fiery debate of who really fired the fatal bullet. The Hanging of Ronald Ryan:40 Years Later Ryan was hanged at Pentridge Prison in Victoria. During the trial it was revealed that another prison guard had fired at the escapees, and all parties agreed only one shot was heard. Ryan himself maintained that he had not fired the gun, but despite ambiguous evidence and the fact that Ryan's rifle was never examined to determine if it had been discharged, the jury found Ryan guilty of murder. State Library of Victoria:Ronald Ryan Ryan was hanged on February 3, 1967 after being convicted of the shooting death of a prison officer during a botched escape from Pentridge Prison. There were no scientific ballistic forensic evidence to prove Ryan's guilt beyond reasonable doubt, mysterious missing pieces of vital evidence that could have cleared Ryan, serious ambiguities in the case, dire inconsistencies of all fourteen eyewitnesses' for the prosecution, testimony by another prison officer that he fired one single shot (heard by hundreds of witnesses - no person heard two shots fired) and ballistic expert testimony the fatal shot was fired from a distance at an elevated position in a downward trajectory angle. Ronald Ryan was convicted of murder based solely on unrecorded unsigned and unproven allegations of verbals/confessions, said to have been made by Ryan to police. Ryan only signed documents stating he would not give any verbal or written statements and always denied ever making such verbals/confessions to any person, claiming he had been "verballed". At the time, the mandatory sentence for murder was death, but in a later strange unusual twist of events most of the 12-man jury who had convicted Ryan made several pleas to political leaders, signing separate petitions urging the Victorian Government not to hang Ryan, claiming they would never have convicted Ryan of murder had they known he would be executed. Despite the largest public protests ever seen in the history of Australia, Ronald Ryan was hanged less than one year later and seven days before his unfunded (Victorian Government withdrew all legal aid funding) final appeal to The Privy Council had made a decision.

By law, confessions in itself or another person’s interpretation of a one’s confession is not sufficient proof of guilt. Confessions are often the practice of forcing a person to behave in an involuntary manner whether through action or inaction by use of coercion, intimidation, trickery, creating feelings of guilt/obligation, or other forms of psychological pressure. Such actions are often used as leverage to force a person to act in the desired way.

Exonerations and pardons

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 later exonerated.

In the U.K., 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. 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. 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.

See also

• Cold case
• Execution of innocent people
• Miscarriage of justice
• William Jackson Marion
• Charles Hudspeth (convict)
• List of exonerated death row inmates

External links

• Death Penalty Information Center Anti-death penalty organisation
• Justice:Denied magazine includes stories of supposedly innocent people who have been executed.
• Database of convicted people said to be innocent includes 150 allegedly wrongfully executed.