Innocence frees 100th prisoner from death row

Social justice news
May 2002

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Innocence frees 100th prisoner from death row
The contentious history of the death penalty in the United States reached a landmark moment in mid-April when Roy Krone was released from an Arizona prison. Krone is the 100th person to be freed from death row due to actual innocence since capital punishment was restored in 1976. Many others have been released from death row due to legal technicalities, such as improper court proceedings like jury selection, jury instruction, and incompetent defense counsel.

The use of DNA evidence has played a large part in halting the execution of innocent people. Krone is the 12th inmate to be freed due to DNA evidence. Unfortunately, Krone had to wait 10 years in prison before DNA tests were performed on evidence in his case, leading to his exoneration.

Steven Hawkins, Executive Director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, said, "The death penalty in America is not merely flawed; it is broken and beyond repair. For every seven people executed in this country in the last three decades, one person has been found to be actually innocent."

Since 1973, Florida has released 22 innocent people from its death row, while Illinois has released 13. Oklahoma and Texas have both released seven, and Arizona and Georgia have each released six.

As a result of its dubious track record, the state of Illinois called a moratorium on all executions in January 2000 and established a special commission to review its capital punishment legislation and practices. The commission released its report April 15th with 85 proposals to reform the system. Governor George Ryan then called on Illinois state legislature to translate the proposals into law. According to the report, at least 115 of Illinois' death row inmates since 1976 would not have been sentenced to death under a reformed system.

The proposals by the commission include a requirement that a panel of three prosecutors, a retired judge, and a representative of the attorney general's office review and approve the state's justification to seek the death penalty. The reforms also call for reducing the number of factors creating eligibility for the death penalty from 20 to 5. The Chicago Tribune reports that Ryan is considering commuting all of Illinois' 160 current death row inmates' sentences to life without parole, a move strongly encouraged by the the Illinois Coalition Against the Death Penalty (ICADP).

In a public statement, ICADP said, "Commutation of all [death sentences] is necessary given that each of these men and women were sentenced under a system that is so riddled with problems and human errors that one cannot even be sure the right person has been convicted."

But perhaps the most important conclusion of the commission is the following: "The Commission was unanimous in the belief that no system, given human nature and frailties, could ever be devised or constructed that would work perfectly and guarantee absolutely that no innocent person is ever again sentenced to death."

Organizers against the death penalty hope that this statement may help convince legislators that abolition of capital punishment is the only just answer.

ICADP's statement goes on to say, "The Coalition is heartened by the fact that a majority of the members of the Commission would support ending the use of the death penalty in Illinois. We have long believed that the facts dictate that anyone who examines the system will find it 'too flawed to fix.' . . . Thus we will work to see that the legislature not only takes up the Commission report, but also HB576 that replaces the fundamentally flawed death penalty with a provision for life imprisonment without parole."

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is reviewing a case from Alabama that argues that death by electrocution is cruel and unusual punishment. The court issued a stay of execution to Gary Leon Brown on April 4, about eight hours before his scheduled execution. The execution will remain postponed until the high court reaches a decision on whether to accept his appeal.

Alabama and Nebraska are the only remaining states that still employ the electric chair as its mechanism for execution.—Tara Dix

For more information:
Report from Illinois' special commission on the death penalty

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