DPIC Analysis: At Least a Dozen Exonerations in 2021 Involved the Wrongful Threat or Pursuit of the Death Penalty

A Death Penalty Information Center review of data from the National Registry of Exonerations has found that the pur­suit or threat­ened use of the death penal­ty by police or pros­e­cu­tors in nine dif­fer­ent states led to the wrong­ful mur­der con­vic­tions of at least twelve inno­cent peo­ple who were exon­er­at­ed in 2021.

DPIC’s analy­sis of the National Registry’s 2021 Annual Report on Exonerations found that pros­e­cu­tors in California, Georgia, Illinois, Mississippi, and New York wrong­ful­ly sought the death penal­ty against sev­en inno­cent defen­dants who were exon­er­at­ed of cap­i­tal mur­der in 2021. In oth­er cas­es, pros­e­cu­tors in Illinois, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania secured wrong­ful mur­der con­vic­tions against five inno­cent defen­dants by pre­sent­ing per­jured tes­ti­mo­ny from wit­ness who had been threat­ened with the death penal­ty or giv­en undis­closed favor­able deals to avoid fac­ing the death penal­ty them­selves. Each of those defen­dants were sen­tenced to terms of life impris­on­ment or life with­out pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole.

“We have often heard pros­e­cu­tors assert that the death penal­ty is nec­es­sary as a bar­gain­ing chip to solve crimes or induce guilty pleas,” DPIC exec­u­tive direc­tor Robert Dunham, who con­duct­ed the analy­sis, said. ​“But states that don’t have the death penal­ty do equal­ly well clos­ing cas­es and don’t have more dif­fi­cul­ty with plea bargains.

“On the oth­er hand,” Dunham said, ​“the evi­dence con­tin­ues to mount that threat­en­ing wit­ness­es and sus­pects with the death penal­ty is impli­cat­ed in numer­ous false con­fes­sions and coerces oth­er peo­ple into pro­vid­ing false tes­ti­mo­ny against innocent defendants.”

Three of the wrong­ful­ly cap­i­tal­ly pros­e­cut­ed defen­dants who were exon­er­at­ed in 2021 — Mississippi death row pris­on­ers Sherwood Brown and Eddie Lee Howard and California death-row pris­on­er Barry Williams — had been sen­tenced to death. Juries sen­tenced three oth­er wrong­ful­ly cap­i­tal­ly pros­e­cut­ed defen­dants — James Allen in Illinois, George Bell in New York, and Devonia Inman in Georgia — to life with­out parole. In the sev­enth cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion, Georgia pros­e­cu­tors secured a wrong­ful mur­der con­vic­tion against Dennis Perry, and then used the threat of an immi­nent penal­ty-phase tri­al to coerce him to agree to waive any guilt-phase appeals in exchange for being spared the death penalty.

Official mis­con­duct was the lead­ing cause of the wrong­ful con­vic­tions, present in 10 of the 12 cas­es. The National Registry did not clas­si­fy the oth­er two cas­es as offi­cial mis­con­duct, although pros­e­cu­tors pre­sent­ed false foren­sic bitemark evi­dence, now wide­ly regard­ed as junk sci­ence, to obtain death sen­tences against Howard and Brown, as well as per­jured infor­mant tes­ti­mo­ny against Brown. In Barry Williams’ case, Los Angeles pros­e­cu­tors obtained his wrong­ful con­vic­tion and death sen­tence by with­hold­ing excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence and know­ing­ly pre­sent­ing false testimony.

Race again was a sig­nif­i­cant fac­tor in the exon­er­a­tions. Nine of the exonerees are African American. All 12 are male. Six of the sev­en who were wrong­ful­ly cap­i­tal­ly pros­e­cut­ed and — and all three who were sen­tenced to death are black. The men aver­aged 26.5 years between con­vic­tion and exon­er­a­tion, col­lec­tive­ly los­ing more than 300 years to the wrong­ful con­vic­tions. But African-American exonerees aver­aged 27.8 years from con­vic­tion to exon­er­a­tion, near­ly 23% longer than the aver­age of 22.7 years it took to clear white exonerees.

DNA evi­dence, which has been a fac­tor in only 15% of death-row exon­er­a­tions, con­tributed to only four of the 12 exonerations.

The use or threat of the death penal­ty led to three wrong­ful con­vic­tions in Cook County, Illinois, whose 16 death-row exon­er­a­tions are the most in the U.S. The wrong­ful threat of the death penal­ty also led to two wrong­ful con­vic­tions in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, whose 6 death-row exon­er­a­tions are tied with Cuyahoga County, Ohio for the sec­ond most in the coun­try. Only one of those cas­es was cap­i­tal­ly pros­e­cut­ed, illus­trat­ing how mis­use of the death penal­ty as a bar­gain­ing tool pro­duces mis­car­riages of jus­tice in both cap­i­tal and non-capital prosecutions. 

In non-cap­i­tal pro­ceed­ings, Philadelphia pros­e­cu­tors pre­sent­ed per­jured tes­ti­mo­ny against co-defen­dants Troy Coulston and Christopher Williams from a 19-year-old wit­ness who had pled guilty to six mur­ders to escape the death penal­ty and been promised the pos­si­bil­i­ty of release in 15 years. Assistant District Attorney David Desiderio did not include the promise in the for­mal plea agree­ment and the wit­ness, James White, lat­er said Desiderio specif­i­cal­ly instruct­ed him not to reveal the promise. Desiderio then elicit­ed false tes­ti­mo­ny from White that he expect­ed to receive a life sentence.

After reform pros­e­cu­tor Lawrence Krasner became Philadelphia District Attorney, an inves­ti­ga­tion by the office’s Conviction Integrity Unit revealed what the National Registry of Exonerations described as ​“a trove” of excul­pa­to­ry police reports and infor­ma­tion that had been con­cealed from the defense in cas­es in which White had tes­ti­fied. That includ­ed a sec­ond mur­der case in which Williams had been wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death. Williams was exon­er­at­ed of that mur­der in December 2019.

In the Cook County non-cap­i­tal cas­es, a key pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness false­ly impli­cat­ed co-defen­dants Nicholas Morfin and Wayne Antusas in their sep­a­rate tri­als. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, mul­ti­ple pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness­es false­ly impli­cat­ed Corey Atchison after being threat­ened with the death penalty.

Seventeen Tulsa death-row pris­on­ers have been exe­cut­ed since the 1970s, more than all but five coun­ties in the United States. Another sev­en Tulsa death-row pris­on­ers are sched­uled to be put to death dur­ing Oklahoma’s planned exe­cu­tion of 25 pris­on­ers between August 2022 and December 2024.