A Death Penalty Information Center analy­sis of data from the National Registry of Exonerations has found that law enforce­ment use or threat of cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion against sus­pects or wit­ness­es con­tributed to the wrong­ful con­vic­tions of 10% of the peo­ple exon­er­at­ed in the United States and more than one-fifth of all mur­der exon­er­a­tions in 2020. 

Reviewing data from the National Registry of Exonerations’ 2020 Annual Report, DPIC found that the death penal­ty was pur­sued or defen­dants or wit­ness­es were threat­ened with the death penal­ty in the cas­es of at least thir­teen of the 129 peo­ple exon­er­at­ed in 2020. The National Registry clas­si­fied offi­cial mis­con­duct as a fac­tor in 12 of those cas­es and per­jury or false accu­sa­tion was present in all 13. The National Registry report­ed 61 mur­der exon­er­a­tions in 2020 and the coer­cive use or threat of cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion was impli­cat­ed in 21.3% of those exonerations.

Four of the exon­er­a­tions were from the city of Philadelphia and three were from Chicago, two of the juris­dic­tions with the most death-row exon­er­a­tions in the coun­try. Eleven of the 13 exon­er­a­tions involved wrong­ful con­vic­tions of African-American defendants. 

Six of the exon­er­a­tions involved defen­dants who were wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death. In three oth­er cas­es, the exoneree faced the death penal­ty at tri­al but received a life sen­tence or was con­vict­ed of less­er mur­der charges. One exoneree was tried before a death-qual­i­fied jury with a co-defen­dant who was sen­tenced to death. One exoneree false­ly con­fessed after being tor­tured by police and threat­ened with the death penal­ty. Two oth­ers were wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed of mur­der when the lead pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness false­ly impli­cat­ed them after hav­ing been threat­ened with the death penalty. 

Collectively, the exonerees spent more than 300 years incar­cer­at­ed for these wrong­ful con­vic­tions, aver­ag­ing 28.4 years in jail. That was near­ly dou­ble the length of time exonerees as a whole lost to their wrong­ful incar­cer­a­tions (13.4 years).

Thirty-sev­en wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed men and women have now been exon­er­at­ed in the last three years in cas­es in which pros­e­cu­tors secured con­vic­tions or delayed an inno­cent person’s release from prison by threat­en­ing wit­ness­es or defen­dants with the death penal­ty. In addi­tion to the 13 death-penal­ty-relat­ed exon­er­a­tions in 2020, the use or threat of the death penal­ty was impli­cat­ed in 19 exon­er­a­tion cas­es in 2019 and five exon­er­a­tions in 2018.

Here are the exon­er­a­tions in 2020 in which wrong­ful con­vic­tions were secured as a result of the use or threat of capital prosecution:

Name

State

County

Most Serious Crime 

Convicted

Exonerated

Sentence

Race

Sex

Contributing Factors

How Death Penalty Implicated

John Brown, Jr.

Arkansas

Dallas

Murder

1992

2020

Life

Black

Male

Perjury or False Accusation, Official Misconduct, Inadequate Legal Defense

Lead pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness con­fessed and false­ly impli­cat­ed Brown and co-defen­dant Tina Jimerson after hav­ing been threat­ened with the death penal­ty. Prison infor­mant also told him he could get the death penal­ty. When wit­ness recant­ed, his false state­ment was read to the jury.

Paul Browning

Nevada

Clark

Murder

1986

2020

Death

Black

Male

Mistaken Witness ID, False or Misleading Forensic Evidence, Perjury or False Accusation, Official Misconduct, Inadequate Legal Defense

Wrongfully cap­i­tal­ly pros­e­cut­ed. First sen­tenced to death in 1986. After his death sen­tence was over­turned, he was wrong­ful­ly sen­tenced to death again in August 2006.

Robert DuBoise

Florida

Hillsborough

Murder

1985

2020

Death

White

Male

False or Misleading Forensic Evidence, Perjury or False Accusation, Official Misconduct

Wrongfully cap­i­tal­ly pros­e­cut­ed. Trial judge over­rode jury rec­om­men­da­tion for life sen­tence and imposed the death penal­ty. Florida Supreme Court vacat­ed his death sen­tence but he remained impris­oned for 35 years.

Curtis Flowers

Mississippi

Montgomery

Murder

1997

2020

Death

Black

Male

Mistaken Witness ID, False or Misleading Forensic Evidence, Perjury or False Accusation, Official Misconduct

Wrongfully pros­e­cut­ed six times for the same offense by the same District Attorney. Received death penal­ty four times, each over­turned for pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct. The oth­er tri­als end­ed in mistrials. 

Tina Jimerson

Arkansas

Dallas

Murder

1992

2020

Life

Black

Female

Perjury or False Accusation, Official Misconduct, Inadequate Legal Defense

Lead pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness con­fessed and false­ly impli­cat­ed Jimerson and co-defen­dant John Brown. Jr. after hav­ing been threat­ened with the death penal­ty. Prison infor­mant also told him he could get the death penal­ty. When wit­ness recant­ed, his false state­ment was read to the jury. 

Kareem Johnson

Pennsylvania

Philadelphia

Murder

2007

2020

Death

Black

Male

False or Misleading Forensic Evidence, Perjury or False Accusation, Inadequate Legal Defense

Wrongfully cap­i­tal­ly prosecuted. 

Roderick Johnson

Pennsylvania

Berks

Murder

1997

2020

Death

Black

Male

False Confession, Perjury or False Accusation, Official Misconduct

Wrongfully cap­i­tal­ly pros­e­cut­ed after pros­e­cu­tion with­held five sep­a­rate police records relat­ed to its lead wit­ness and infor­ma­tion con­cern­ing favor­able treat­ment wit­ness had received. Same infor­ma­tion was with­held in sep­a­rate wrong­ful cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion of Shawnfatee Bridges, also sen­tenced to death.

Walter Ogrod

Pennsylvania

Philadelphia

Murder

1996

2020

Death

White

Male

False Confession, False or Misleading Forensic Evidence, Perjury or False Accusation, Official Misconduct, Inadequate Legal Defense

Falsely con­fessed after coer­cive police inter­ro­ga­tion. Twice wrong­ful­ly cap­i­tal­ly pros­e­cut­ed. First tri­al end­ed in mis­tri­al, with 11 jurors vot­ing to acquit. Convicted and sen­tenced to death in second trial.

Robert Smith

Illinois

Cook

Murder

1990

2020

Life with­out parole

Black

Male

False Confession, False or Misleading Forensic Evidence, Perjury or False Accusation, Official Misconduct

Wrongfully cap­i­tal­ly prosecuted.

Keith Walker

Illinois

Cook

Murder

1994

2020

Life with­out parole

Black

Male

Mistaken Witness ID, False Confession, Perjury or False Accusation, Official Misconduct

Falsely con­fessed after being tor­tured by Chicago police over the course of two days. The tor­ture includ­ed being beat­en and giv­en elec­tric shocks, denied food and access to a bath­room, threat­ened with a gun, and threat­ened with the death penalty.

Terrance Williams

Pennsylvania

Philadelphia

Murder

1985

2020

13 1/​2 to 27 years

Black

Male

Perjury or False Accusation, Official Misconduct

Wrongfully cap­i­tal­ly pros­e­cut­ed but just con­vict­ed of non-cap­i­tal third-degree mur­der charge. Conviction used as aggra­vat­ing cir­cum­stance in a sec­ond case in which Williams was sen­tenced to death. That death sen­tence was lat­er over­turned for prosecutorial misconduct. 

Although mis­con­duct occurred in a siz­able num­ber of exon­er­a­tions, it was much more preva­lent in cas­es in which police or pros­e­cu­tors threat­ened or pur­sued the death penal­ty. Overall, the National Registry report­ed offi­cial mis­con­duct in 87 exon­er­a­tions (67.4%). By con­trast it was present in 92.3% of the cas­es in which the death penal­ty was implicated. 

Police or pros­e­cu­tors with­held excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence in 79 of the exon­er­a­tions in 2020 (61.2%), or 90.8% of the cas­es involv­ing offi­cial mis­con­duct. However, they were 50% more like­ly to with­hold excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence in the death-penal­ty-relat­ed cas­es. Law enforce­ment sup­pressed excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence in all 12 death-penal­ty-relat­ed cas­es in which mis­con­duct occurred. And while pros­e­cu­tors com­mit­ted mis­con­duct in less than half of all 2020 exon­er­a­tions (51 of 129 cas­es, or 39.5%), they com­mit­ted mis­con­duct in 84.6% of the exon­er­a­tion cas­es in which the death penal­ty was pur­sued or threat­ened (11 of 13) — more than twice as fre­quent­ly as in oth­er cas­es. By con­trast, there was lit­tle dif­fer­ence in the rates at which police mis­con­duct occurred: it was present in 74 of the 129 exon­er­a­tions over­all (61.2%) and in 8 of the 13 death-penal­ty-relat­ed exon­er­a­tions (61.5%).

Name

State

County

Prosecutorial Misconduct

Police Misconduct

Withheld Exculpatory Evidence

False Confession From Misconduct During Police Interrogation

John Brown, Jr.

Arkansas

Dallas

x

x

x

Paul Browning

Nevada

Clark

x

x

Robert DuBoise

Florida

Hillsborough

x

x

x

Curtis Flowers

Mississippi

Montgomery

x

x

x

Tina Jimerson

Arkansas

Dallas

x

x

x

Kareem Johnson

Pennsylvania

Philadelphia

Roderick Johnson

Pennsylvania

Berks

x

x

Walter Ogrod

Pennsylvania

Philadelphia

x

x

x

x

Robert Smith

Illinois

Cook

x

x

x

x

Keith Walker

Illinois

Cook

x

x

x

Terrance Williams

Pennsylvania

Philadelphia

x

x

Jackie Wilson

Illinois

Cook

x

x

x

x

Theophalis Wilson

Pennsylvania

Philadelphia

x

x
Tags
Citation Guide
Sources

National Registry of Exonerations, 2021 Annual Report, March 31, 2021.

DPIC analy­sis by Robert Dunham.