On November 21, 2018, Kentucky marked 10 years since its last exe­cu­tion, becom­ing the eleventh cur­rent death-penal­ty state that has not car­ried out an exe­cu­tion in more than a decade. Another 20 states have leg­isla­tive­ly or judi­cial­ly abol­ished their death-penal­ty laws, bring­ing the num­ber of states that do not active­ly use the death penal­ty to 31. On the day before Kentucky reached its 10-year mile­stone, a law­suit filed in fed­er­al court high­light­ed some of the great­est dan­gers of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the Commonwealth. On November 20, Nickie Miller—a mil­i­tary vet­er­an and can­cer patient who spent two years in jail fac­ing a pos­si­ble death sen­tence before mur­der charges against him were dropped in 2017 — filed a law­suit against Montgomery County, Kentucky and local and state law enforce­ment offi­cials alleg­ing that they had con­spired to frame him for murder.

Miller’s com­plaint names six peo­ple involved in his inves­ti­ga­tion and pros­e­cu­tion as defen­dants: Montgomery County Sheriff Fred Shortridge, Assistant Commonwealth Attorney Keith Craycraft, Detectives Ralph Charles Jr. and Mark Collier, coun­ty jail­er Eric Jones, and Kentucky State Police Polygraph Examiner John Fyffe. The com­plaint alleges that the defen­dants fab­ri­cat­ed and destroyed evi­dence, tes­ti­fied false­ly, and coerced a woman into false­ly impli­cat­ing Miller by threat­en­ing to take her chil­dren unless she pro­vid­ed the state­ment they want­ed. It specif­i­cal­ly claims that Fyffe and the sheriff’s offi­cers ​“con­spired to take [Miller’s] lib­er­ty by know­ing­ly ini­ti­at­ing false charges based on evi­dence that the Defendants fab­ri­cat­ed.” According to the com­plaint, the alleged mis­con­duct ​“had a pro­found impact” on Miller’s health, deny­ing him ​“prop­er med­ical treat­ment [for his can­cer], includ­ing chemother­a­py, while incar­cer­at­ed.” ​“The defen­dants suc­ceed­ed in manip­u­lat­ing the jus­tice sys­tem for sev­er­al years, includ­ing false­ly accus­ing Mr. Miller of cap­i­tal mur­der and seek­ing the death penal­ty against a clear­ly inno­cent man,” defense inves­ti­ga­tor Joshua Powell said. ​“Mr. Miller has suf­fered tremen­dous dam­age, men­tal suf­fer­ing, can­cer recur­rence and loss of a nor­mal life, all caused by the defen­dants’ misconduct.”

Kentucky has imposed 97 death sen­tences since rein­stat­ing the death penal­ty in 1975. More than half (49) of those con­vic­tions or sen­tences have been over­turned, includ­ing the con­vic­tion of Larry Osborne, who was exon­er­at­ed in 2002. Two of the three men exe­cut­ed in Kentucky waived some or all of their appeals, ​“essen­tial­ly com­mit­ting legal sui­cide,” said Damon Preston, a Public Advocate at the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy. Preston also said that Kentucky’s death penal­ty sys­tem deprives fam­i­lies of clo­sure: ​“It’s hard to see how the fam­i­ly would get res­o­lu­tion when the cas­es go on for so long. But the rea­son cas­es go on for so long is because the death penal­ty in Kentucky doesn’t work. If a defen­dant is sen­tenced to life with­out parole, that defen­dant gets an appeal to the Kentucky Supreme Court and then the case is essen­tial­ly over.” Executions in Kentucky have been under a judi­cial hold since 2010, as a result of chal­lenges to the lethal-injec­tion pro­to­col. The Attorney General’s Office is sched­uled to file its brief in the lethal-injec­tion case on November 30, but addi­tion­al hear­ings and brief­ing are expect­ed before the court issues a rul­ing in the case.

(DPIC, Jurisdictions with no recent exe­cu­tions; Chris Williams, Kentucky has not exe­cut­ed a death row inmate in 10 years, here’s why, WHAS-TV, Louisville, November 21, 2018; Andrew Wolfson, Kentucky police and pros­e­cu­tor tried to frame man for mur­der, suit says, Louisville Courier Journal, November 21, 2018; WKYT News Staff, Man pre­vi­ous­ly charged in Montgomery County mur­der files law­suit against inves­ti­ga­tors, pros­e­cu­tor, WKYT-TV, Lexington, November 21, 2018.) See Innocence, Executions, and Lethal Injection.

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