INNOCENCE: Another Death-Row Exoneration Added to DPIC’s Innocence List

Occasionally, DPIC dis­cov­ers an old­er case involv­ing an exon­er­a­tion from death row and adds that case to the DPIC Innocence List. Joe Cota Morales was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in Arizona in 1976 and was exon­er­at­ed in 1981. He has now been added to the Innocence List, bring­ing the total num­ber of death-row exon­er­a­tions to 192.

Morales’ con­vic­tion in Maricopa County, Arizona, was over­turned in 1978, and he was retried and sen­tenced to life in 1979. In 1981, his sec­ond con­vic­tion was also over­turned. He was acquit­ted at his third tri­al lat­er that year.

The Arizona Supreme Court over­turned the con­vic­tion of Morales in 1978 because the tri­al judge did not allow the defense to cross-exam­ine a wit­ness who received a ben­e­fit for tes­ti­fy­ing against him. His sec­ond con­vic­tion was over­turned because pros­e­cu­tors failed to turn over evi­dence throw­ing doubt on Morales’ guilt. 

Morales’ death sen­tence was iden­ti­fied by University of North Carolina Professor Frank Baumgartner, and DPIC’s ongo­ing research for the Death Penalty Census uncov­ered infor­ma­tion indi­cat­ing that the case meets DPIC’s cri­te­ria for a death-row exoneration.