Wrongful execution

Wrongful execution is a miscarriage of justice occurring when an innocent person is put to death by capital punishment, the "death penalty." The possibility of wrongful executions is one of the arguments presented by the opponents of capital punishment.

A number of people have been heralded as innocent victims of the death penalty. At least 39 executions have been carried out in the U.S. in the face of compelling evidence of innocence or serious doubt about guilt.

See also: Capital punishment debate § Wrongful convictions

Specific examples

Of the cases, one of the most often talked about is the execution of Jesse Tafero in Florida. Tafero was convicted along with an accomplice, Sonia Jacobs, of murdering two people in 1976; each was sentenced to death based primarily on the testimony of a third person, Walter Rhodes, who was an accessory to the crime and 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. 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 is also often said 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 2 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 couldn't have been dead more than 3 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; and there was even 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, although they might have been enough to exonerate him or, with the other errors, to have been sufficient for obtaining a new trial.

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.

Exonerations and pardons

Newly-available DNA evidence has allowed the exoneration and release of more than 15 death row inmates since 1992 in the US, but DNA evidence is only available in a fraction of capital cases.

Kirk Bloodsworth was the first American to be freed from death row as a result of exoneration by DNA fingerprinting.

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 1953, 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 noting the original trial judge had denied the defendant "the fair trial which is the birthright of every British citizen."

In popular culture

Wrongful execution is the main plot of the 2003 film The Life of David Gale, directed by Alan Parker and starring Kevin Spacey, Kate Winslet, and Laura Linney. This theme is also the backbone of the Oscar-nominated film The Green Mile.

The character Hunyak (who can not afford a good lawyer) is the only innocent person of the six female murderers in the County Cook jail, and the first executed in the state of Illinois, in the fictious 2002 musical film Chicago set in the 1920s. In fact, there were three women excuted in Illinois: one in the 1860s and two in the 1960s.

The motivation for the escape of the main characters of Prison Break is to prevent a wrongful execution.

The 1970 movie 10 Rillington Place tells the true story of Timothy Evans, who was executed for murder and later found to be innocent. This case was partly responsible for the United Kingdom abolishing the death penalty.

External links

• Death Penalty Information Center Statistics and studies of deterrence and economic and racial bias.
• Justice:Denied magazine includes stories of innocent people who have been executed.
• Database of innocent convicted people includes 150 wrongfully executed.