“Innocence Deniers” and Coercive Plea Agreements Impede Death-Row Exonerations Across the U.S.

A pros­e­cu­tor’s duty, the U.S. Supreme Court wrote in 1935, ​“is not that it shall win a case, but that jus­tice shall be done.” Yet pros­e­cu­tors across the U.S. have refused to acknowl­edge the inno­cence of defen­dants who have been wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed, obstruct­ing release by retry­ing death-sen­tenced defen­dants despite exon­er­at­ing evi­dence, or con­di­tion­ing their release upon ​“Alford pleas,” which force defen­dants to choose between clear­ing their names or obtain­ing their free­dom. In an arti­cle for Slate, Lara Bazelon chron­i­cles cas­es of pros­e­cu­tors whom she calls ​“inno­cence deniers,” and the exon­er­a­tions they have willfully obstructed. 

Bazelon high­lights the retri­als of exonerees Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez, wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in Illinois. After their ini­tial con­vic­tion, a ser­i­al mur­der­er, Brian Dugan, con­fessed to com­mit­ting the crime alone, but pros­e­cu­tors per­sist­ed in retry­ing Cruz and Hernandez. Their sec­ond con­vic­tion was also over­turned, but despite DNA test­ing that had cor­rob­o­rat­ed Dugan’s con­fes­sion, pros­e­cu­tors sub­ject­ed them to tri­al for a third time. Cruz was acquit­ted and pros­e­cu­tors dropped Hernandez’s charges. After the exon­er­a­tion, three pros­e­cu­tors involved in the case were indict­ed but acquit­ted of obstruc­tion of jus­tice and perjury. 

A relat­ed phe­nom­e­non, the use of Alford pleas, is described in a New York Times sto­ry by Megan Rose. In an Alford plea, the defen­dant admits that the evi­dence against him or her would be suf­fi­cient to con­vict, but con­tin­ues to assert inno­cence. The pris­on­er remains con­vict­ed of the crime and is resen­tenced to time already served and allowed to go free. These deals are often used in exon­er­a­tion cas­es that involve offi­cial mis­con­duct, because defen­dants who enter these pleas are typ­i­cal­ly barred from bring­ing law­suits against prosecutors.

Montez Spradley (pic­tured), an Alabama death-row pris­on­er, agreed to an Alford plea in 2015 after his attor­neys dis­cov­ered con­sti­tu­tion­al vio­la­tions in his case, includ­ing undis­closed pay­ments to a key wit­ness. The agree­ment end­ed inves­ti­ga­tion into the prosecutorial misconduct. 

In June 2017, Ha’im Al Matin Sharif was released from Nevada’s death row, near­ly 30 years after he was con­vict­ed of killing his girl­friend’s 11-month-old daugh­ter, after med­ical evi­dence revealed that the baby died from infan­tile scurvy, rather than from phys­i­cal abuse. Police had coerced the girl­friend into pro­vid­ing false tes­ti­mo­ny impli­cat­ing Sharif by threat­en­ing to take her oth­er chil­dren away if she did not coop­er­ate. Prosecutors insist­ed that Sharif plead guilty to sec­ond-degree mur­der to obtain his release. 

One month ear­li­er, Jimmy Dennis was released from twen­ty-five years of soli­tary con­fine­ment on Pennsylvania’s death row after plead­ing no con­test to less­er charges. His release marked the cul­mi­na­tion of three unre­lat­ed cas­es in which mis­con­duct by the same two Philadelphia homi­cide detec­tives had framed cap­i­tal defen­dants. Innocence denial has the seri­ous side effect of leav­ing the real per­pe­tra­tors free while pros­e­cu­tors con­tin­ue to oppose release of innocent prisoners. 

The Innocence Project has secured the DNA exon­er­a­tions of 353 peo­ple, and iden­ti­fied 152 actu­al per­pe­tra­tors in those cas­es who went on to com­mit at least 150 addi­tion­al vio­lent crimes. Official mis­con­duct is the lead­ing cause of wrong­ful cap­i­tal con­vic­tions.