In an edi­to­r­i­al on April 13, the New York Times described the death penal­ty as ​“cru­el, immoral, and inef­fec­tive at reduc­ing crime” and called it ​“so rid­dled with error that no civ­i­lized nation should tol­er­ate its use.” The Times described how pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct and an ​“all-too-com­mon mind-set to win at all costs” played a sub­stan­tial role in the con­vic­tions of many of the 152 inno­cent men and women who have been exon­er­at­ed after being­ly wrong­ly sent to death row and had con­tributed to the exe­cu­tion of at least two death-row inmates who almost cer­tain­ly were inno­cent. ​“Innocent peo­ple get con­vict­ed for many rea­sons, includ­ing bad lawyer­ing, mis­tak­en iden­ti­fi­ca­tions and false con­fes­sions made under duress,” the edi­to­r­i­al said. ​“But as advances in DNA analy­sis have accel­er­at­ed the pace of exon­er­a­tions, it has also become clear that pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct is at the heart of an alarm­ing num­ber of these cas­es.” The Times not­ed that ​“In the past year alone, nine peo­ple who had been sen­tenced to death were released — and in all but one case, pros­e­cu­tors’ wrong­do­ing played a key role.” Read full editorial below.

152 Innocents, Marked for Death

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD, APRIL 13, 2015

However much Americans may dis­agree about the moral­i­ty of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, no one wants to see an inno­cent person executed. 

And yet, far too often, peo­ple end up on death row after being con­vict­ed of hor­rif­ic crimes they did not com­mit. The lucky ones are exon­er­at­ed while they are still alive — a macabre club that has grown to include 152 mem­bers since 1973. 

The rest remain locked up for life in clos­et-size cells. Some die there of nat­ur­al caus­es; in at least two doc­u­ment­ed cas­es, inmates who were almost cer­tain­ly inno­cent were put to death. 

How many more inno­cent peo­ple have met the same fate, or are await­ing it? That may nev­er be known. But over the past 42 years, some­one on death row has been exon­er­at­ed, on aver­age, every three months. According to one study, at least 4 per­cent of all death-row inmates in the United States have been wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed. That is far more than often enough to con­clude that the death penal­ty — besides being cru­el, immoral, and inef­fec­tive at reduc­ing crime — is so rid­dled with error that no civ­i­lized nation should tol­er­ate its use. 

Innocent peo­ple get con­vict­ed for many rea­sons, includ­ing bad lawyer­ing, mis­tak­en iden­ti­fi­ca­tions and false con­fes­sions made under duress. But as advances in DNA analy­sis have accel­er­at­ed the pace of exon­er­a­tions, it has also become clear that pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct is at the heart of an alarm­ing num­ber of these cases. 

In the past year alone, nine peo­ple who had been sen­tenced to death were released — and in all but one case, pros­e­cu­tors’ wrong­do­ing played a key role. 

The lat­est was Anthony Ray Hinton, who on Apr. 3 walked out of the Alabama prison where he had spent almost 30 years, half his life, on death row. Mr. Hinton was con­vict­ed of two mur­ders large­ly on faulty evi­dence that the bul­lets had come from his gun. His pros­e­cu­tor at the time said he knew Mr. Hinton was guilty and ​“evil” just by look­ing at him. And lat­er pros­e­cu­tors con­tin­ued to insist on his guilt even when expert tes­ti­mo­ny clear­ly refut­ed the case against him. 

Why does this keep hap­pen­ing? In a remark­able let­ter to the edi­tor pub­lished last month in The Shreveport Times, A.M. Stroud III, a for­mer pros­e­cu­tor in Louisiana’s Caddo Parish, offered a chill­ing­ly frank answer: ​“Winning became everything.” 

In 1984, Mr. Stroud con­vinced a jury to con­vict a man named Glenn Ford and sen­tence him to death for mur­der. But Mr. Stroud now admits that because he was so focused on win­ning rather than on seek­ing jus­tice, he failed to iden­ti­fy and turn over evi­dence that would have cleared Mr. Ford. 

“How total­ly wrong was I,” Mr. Stroud wrote, apol­o­giz­ing to Mr. Ford — who spent 30 years in prison, 26 of those on death row — as well as his fam­i­ly, the judge, the jury, and the fam­i­ly of the mur­der vic­tim, a jew­el­er named Isadore Rozeman. 

This is lit­tle con­so­la­tion to Mr. Ford, who was released in 2014 but is now dying from lung can­cer that devel­oped, and went untreat­ed, while he wast­ed away in prison. (Last month a Louisiana judge denied Mr. Ford any com­pen­sa­tion beyond the $20 deb­it card he received upon his release.) Still, Mr. Stroud’s pow­er­ful mes­sage is a rare admis­sion of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al hubris and the out­ra­geous­ly high price many peo­ple pay for it. 

Unfortunately, that mes­sage is unlike­ly to be heed­ed in places where it needs to be heard most — in Caddo Parish itself, for exam­ple, which sen­tences more peo­ple to death per capi­ta than any­where else in the coun­try. Responding to the sear­ing hon­esty of Mr. Stroud’s let­ter, the parish’s cur­rent first assis­tant dis­trict attor­ney, Dale Cox, offered up some can­dor of his own: ​“I’m a believ­er that the death penal­ty serves society’s inter­est in revenge,” Mr. Cox told The Shreveport Times. ​“I think we need to kill more people.” 

The all-too-com­mon mind-set to win at all costs has facil­i­tat­ed the exe­cu­tions of peo­ple like Cameron Todd Willingham or Carlos DeLuna, whose con­vic­tions have been con­vinc­ing­ly debunked in recent years. And that mind-set led to the wrong­ful con­vic­tion of peo­ple like Mr. Hinton, Mr. Ford and Henry Lee McCollum, who was exon­er­at­ed last year after spend­ing three decades on North Carolina’s death row. 

If not for the extra­or­di­nary after-the-fact efforts of lawyers, inves­ti­ga­tors, or just plain dumb luck, these men would be dead too, and nei­ther Mr. Cox nor any­one else would be the wiser. 

(“152 Innocents, Marked for Death,” New York Times, edi­to­r­i­al, April 13, 2015). See In n  ocence, Prosecutorial Misconduct, and Arbitrariness . Read more  Editorials on the death penalty. 

Citation Guide