DPIC Analysis: Use or Threat of Death Penalty Implicated in 19 Exoneration Cases in 2019

Prosecutors or police used or threat­ened to use the death penal­ty as a coer­cive tool that led to or extend­ed the wrong­ful con­vic­tions of at least nine­teen peo­ple who were exon­er­at­ed in 2019, a Death Penalty Information Center analy­sis of data from the National Registry of Exonerations has revealed. Nearly 95% of those cas­es also involved some oth­er form of major mis­con­duct, the DPIC analysis found.

DPIC’s spe­cial report, Use or Threat of Death Penalty Implicated in 19 Exoneration Cases in 2019, which the orga­ni­za­tion released on October 23, 2020, found that the use or threat of the death penal­ty was a fac­tor in at least 19 of the 143 exon­er­a­tions in the U.S. list­ed in the National Registry’s annu­al report on 2019 exon­er­a­tions — more than 13% of the nation’s total. Collectively, these wrong­ful con­vic­tions caused exonerees near­ly 500 years lost to wrongful incarceration. 

Tracking the National Registry’s des­ig­na­tion of fac­tors con­tribut­ing to the wrong­ful con­vic­tions (click here to enlarge graph­ic), the DPIC analy­sis found that Official Misconduct and/​or Perjury or False Accusation was present in all but one of the wrong­ful incar­cer­a­tions in which the death penal­ty was impli­cat­ed (18 of 19, or 94.7%). Misconduct occurred with even greater fre­quen­cy in the cas­es involv­ing the use or threat of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment than the already alarm­ing rate at which mis­con­duct his­tor­i­cal­ly occurs in exon­er­a­tions. In its September 2020 report, Government Misconduct and Convicting the Innocent, the National Registry of Exonerations found that mis­con­duct was present in more than half of all exon­er­a­tions since 1989, and rose to near­ly three-quar­ters of the cas­es in which exonerees had been wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death.

“The num­bers show that the death penal­ty has dan­ger­ous effects on the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem that go far beyond the already sig­nif­i­cant risk of exe­cut­ing inno­cent peo­ple,” said DPIC Executive Director Robert Dunham, who con­duct­ed the analy­sis. ​“Innocent peo­ple con­fess to crimes they didn’t com­mit to avoid the pos­si­bil­i­ty of being exe­cut­ed. Suspects, both inno­cent and guilty, who are threat­ened with the death penal­ty if they do not coop­er­ate with law enforce­ment pro­vide false tes­ti­mo­ny that sends inno­cent peo­ple to jail, often for decades. The data sug­gest that the mis­use of the death penal­ty as a coer­cive inter­ro­ga­tion and plea-bar­gain­ing tool pos­es a far greater threat to the fair admin­is­tra­tion of the crim­i­nal laws than we had previously imagined.”

The 2019 Annual Report of the National Registry of Exonerations includes three for­mer death-row pris­on­ers who were exon­er­at­ed in 2019: Clifford Williams, Jr.; Charles Ray Finch; and Christopher Williams. Collectively, they spent 111 years wrong­ful­ly incar­cer­at­ed for mur­ders they did not com­mit. However, DPIC’s review of the National Registry’s data iden­ti­fied at least six­teen oth­er exonerees not sen­tenced to death who either were wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed after they or oth­ers asso­ci­at­ed with the case were threat­ened with the death penal­ty or had their wrong­ful incar­cer­a­tions extend­ed because wit­ness­es had been threat­ened with the death penal­ty if they tes­ti­fied for the defense.

In addi­tion to the three death-row exonerations:

• Prosecutors sought the death penal­ty against four oth­er men. In three of the cas­es, jurors con­vict­ed them of less­er degrees of mur­der or reject­ed cir­cum­stances that would have made them eli­gi­ble for the death penal­ty. In the fourth case, pros­e­cu­tors with­drew the death penal­ty at the start of trial.
• An 18-year-old was not cap­i­tal­ly charged because of his age but was tried before a death-qual­i­fied jury because his co-defen­dant (who also was exon­er­at­ed in 2019) was capitally tried.
• Nine false­ly con­fessed as a result of the death penal­ty. Six gave false con­fes­sions after law enforce­ment threat­ened them with the death penal­ty. One of them pled guilty to rape and mur­der to avoid the death penal­ty; the actu­al killer remained free and com­mit­ted anoth­er rape and mur­der. Three false­ly con­fessed to rape to avoid cap­i­tal mur­der charges and then false­ly impli­cat­ed a fourth man (also exon­er­at­ed in 2019) in the mur­der. A 16-year-old false­ly con­fessed under pres­sure from his old­er broth­er so the broth­er would not face the death penal­ty, and then a pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness who had been threat­ened with the death penal­ty false­ly impli­cat­ed the teen.
• Three were con­vict­ed of mur­der after pros­e­cu­tors pre­sent­ed false tes­ti­mo­ny from wit­ness­es who had been threat­ened with the death penalty.
• One had his exon­er­a­tion obstruct­ed when pros­e­cu­tors threat­ened a post-con­vic­tion wit­ness with the death penal­ty for admit­ting to the mur­der and then charged the wit­ness with per­jury for his truthful admission.

The Registry’s September report also found that gov­ern­ment mis­con­duct was more like­ly to occur in cas­es involv­ing Black defen­dants. Among the 2,400 exon­er­a­tions it exam­ined, 57% of Black exonerees and 52% of white exonerees had been vic­tims of police or pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct. However, the report found, ​“this gap is much larg­er among exon­er­a­tions for mur­der (78% to 64%) — espe­cial­ly those with death sen­tences (87% to 68%).” The 2019 exon­er­a­tion cas­es in which police or pros­e­cu­tors sought or threat­ened to use the death penal­ty pro­vid­ed fur­ther evi­dence of this dis­par­i­ty. DPIC found white exonerees were vic­tims of mis­con­duct 75% of the time (in 6 of 8 cas­es), while all eleven Black exonerees had been vic­tims of misconduct.

The DPIC analy­sis found dra­mat­ic evi­dence of the impact of coer­cive effect of law enforce­ment threats to use the death penal­ty. The odds that Official Misconduct con­tributed to a wrong­ful con­vic­tion were 4.57 times greater when the death penal­ty was pur­sued or its use was threat­ened, as com­pared to the 2019 exon­er­a­tions as a whole and increased more than sev­en-fold (7.32 times greater) in the death-penal­ty-impli­cat­ed cas­es as com­pared to non-homi­cide exon­er­a­tions. Compared to homi­cide exon­er­a­tions as a whole, Official Misconduct was near­ly twen­ty per­cent more like­ly (19.3%) to be present when a case involved wrong­ful use or threat of the death penal­ty and the odds that Official Misconduct con­tributed to a wrong­ful con­vic­tion were 2.83 times greater.

The pur­suit or threat­ened use of the death penal­ty also strong­ly cor­re­lat­ed with the pres­ence of Perjury or False Accusation. The odds that a wrong­ful con­vic­tion was pro­cured by such tes­ti­mo­ny more than dou­bled (2.2 times high­er) in cas­es involv­ing death-penal­ty threats and were near­ly triple (2.98 times high­er) than in non-homi­cide exon­er­a­tions. Compared to homi­cide exon­er­a­tions as a whole, Perjury or False Accusation was ten per­cent more like­ly to occur when law enforce­ment sought or threat­ened to use the death penal­ty and the odds that Perjury or False Accusation would be present as a fac­tor were 1.67 times higher.

Although every type of error or mis­con­duct was more like­ly to be present in exon­er­a­tions involv­ing the use or threat of the death penal­ty than in oth­er exon­er­a­tions, the two areas in which the dif­fer­ences were great­est were wrong­ful con­vic­tions in which pros­e­cu­tors pre­sent­ed false or fab­ri­cat­ed con­fes­sions or mis­tak­en eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tions. False con­fes­sions were 3.26 times more like­ly to occur in a case in which pros­e­cu­tors threat­ened to pur­sue the death penal­ty or police threat­ened sus­pects or wit­ness­es with the death penal­ty (42.1% ver­sus 12.9%). Mistaken Eyewitness Identifications were present in more than half of the cas­es in which pros­e­cu­tors pur­sued or law enforce­ment threat­ened the use of the death penal­ty (11 of 19 cas­es, or 57.9%) and were near­ly twice as like­ly to occur (1.94) in the death penal­ty cas­es than in oth­er exon­er­a­tion cas­es (37 of 124 cas­es, 29.8%).