Innocents Lost: Remembering The Wrongfully Condemned Who Died in 2015

Three death-row exonerees, includ­ing two who became sym­bols of the risks of wrong­ful cap­i­tal con­vic­tions, died in 2015. David Keaton (pic­tured, far left), the first man exon­er­at­ed from death row in the mod­ern era of the death penal­ty, died on July 3 at the age of 63. A teenaged Keaton was sen­tenced to death in Florida in 1971 for the mur­der of an off-duty police offi­cer. His con­vic­tion was based upon a coerced con­fes­sion and erro­neous eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny. Keaton was exon­er­at­ed in 1973 when new evi­dence revealed the actu­al per­pe­tra­tor. Glenn Ford (pic­tured, left), who was exon­er­at­ed in 2014 after spend­ing near­ly 30 years on Louisiana​’s death row, died of lung can­cer on June 29 at age 65. Ford was tried before an all-white jury, rep­re­sent­ed by appoint­ed coun­sel who had nev­er han­dled a crim­i­nal case. He was con­vict­ed despite the absence of any evi­dence link­ing him to the mur­der weapon, when pros­e­cu­tors failed to dis­close that con­fi­den­tial infor­mants had iden­ti­fied two oth­er men as the mur­der­ers. They ulti­mate­ly admit­ted that ​“cred­i­ble evi­dence” showed that ​“Ford was nei­ther present at, nor a par­tic­i­pant in,” the mur­der. Death-row exoneree Andrew Golden, who spent 26 months on Florida’s death row from 1991 to 1994, died in May. Golden had been wrong­ly con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing his wife although police inves­ti­ga­tors and the med­ical exam­in­er had tes­ti­fied that the evi­dence did not sug­gest foul play. At least four oth­er death-row pris­on­ers who may have been wrong­ful­ly con­demned — Lester Bower, Brian Keith Terrell, Donnis Musgrove, and Ronald Puksar — were exe­cut­ed or died on death row before judi­cial review of their cas­es were complete.

Bower was exe­cut­ed in Texas on June 3 despite main­tain­ing his inno­cence through­out the 30 years he spent on death row. After three tri­als and 23 years, Georgia exe­cut­ed Terrell on December 9. It took exe­cu­tion per­son­nel an hour to find a vein and, as the exe­cu­tion drug was being admin­is­tered, Terrell mouthed the words: ​“Didn’t do it.” Musgrove died of lung can­cer on Alabama​’s death row on November 25, while his claim of inno­cence was pend­ing before a fed­er­al dis­trict court judge. His case was tried by the same pros­e­cu­tor before the same judge, and with ques­tion­able weapons tes­ti­mo­ny from the same bal­lis­tics expert involved in the case of Anthony Ray Hinton, who was exon­er­at­ed ear­li­er in 2015. Puksar died on March 30, after 22 years on Pennsylvania​’s death row. He was con­demned for the shoot­ing deaths of his broth­er and sis­ter-in-law, even though the foren­sic pathol­o­gist who con­duct­ed the autop­sies in 1991, Dr. Neil A. Hoffman, con­clud­ed that the killings had been a murder/​suicide. After the jury found him guilty, Puksar direct­ed his tri­al lawyer not to intro­duce any mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence in the penal­ty phase, say­ing he had not com­mit­ted the mur­ders and had noth­ing to mit­i­gate. After Puksar’s death, Dr. Hoffman said ​“I believe the case was a mis­car­riage of justice.” 

(Dana Spiotta, ​“The Lives They Lived: Glenn Ford, All Alone,” The New York Times Magazine, December 28, 2015; G. Ensley, ​“Quincy Five’s Keaton, exon­er­at­ed from Death Row, dies,” Tallahassee Democrat, July 8, 2015; Mike Urban, ​“Convicted Killer Ronald Puksar Dies in Prison,” Reading Eagle, April 3, 2015.) See Innocence.