National Geographic Publishes Feature Story on Innocence and the Death Penalty

For the first time in its his­to­ry, National Geographic mag­a­zine has tack­led the sub­ject of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Sentenced to death, but inno­cent, a fea­ture sto­ry in the March 2021 issue of the mag­a­zine, chron­i­cles the sto­ries of fif­teen death-row exonerees and illu­mi­nates the per­va­sive issue of inno­cence and the death penal­ty in the United States. The arti­cle, released on the same day as the Death Penalty Information Center’s new report The Innocence Epidemic, uses DPIC data and com­pelling nar­ra­tive sto­ry­telling to show how the U.S. legal sys­tem fails inno­cent peo­ple, peo­ple of col­or, and vic­tims of crime. (To enlarge National Geographic graph­ic, click here.)

Noting that the lives of death-row exonerees after their release ​“are every bit as daunt­ing, ter­ri­fy­ing, and con­fus­ing as the bur­den of inno­cence that once taunt­ed them,” author Phillip Morris explains that “[t]he post-trau­mat­ic stress faced by a wrong­ly con­vict­ed per­son who has await­ed exe­cu­tion by the gov­ern­ment doesn’t dis­si­pate sim­ply because the state frees the inmate, apol­o­gizes, or even pro­vides finan­cial com­pen­sa­tion — which often is not the case.”

The arti­cle, accom­pa­nied by stel­lar por­trait pho­tographs by Martin Schoeller and info­graph­ics on exon­er­a­tions and the com­po­si­tion of death row, high­lights the advo­ca­cy and post-exon­er­a­tion lives of the exonerees. It weaves the sto­ries into the larg­er pic­ture of the death penal­ty with data and com­men­tary from legal experts and researchers. Each sto­ry illus­trates how fac­tors like offi­cial mis­con­duct, per­jury, and mis­tak­en wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion con­tribute to the epi­dem­ic of wrong­ful con­vic­tions and death sentences. 

The arti­cle opens with the sto­ry of death-row exoneree and nation­al anti-death-penal­ty advo­cate Kwame Ajamu, who serves as Board Chair of Witness to Innocence (WTI), the nation­al orga­ni­za­tion of U.S. death-row exonerees. As a teenag­er, Ajamu was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed in Ohio in 1975. His broth­er, Wiley Bridgeman, and Ricky Jackson were also wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and con­demned. It took 39 years to exonerate them.

“I was abduct­ed by the state of Ohio when I was 17 years old,” Ajamu told National Geographic. ​“I was a child when I was sent to prison to be killed. I did not under­stand what was hap­pen­ing to me or how it could hap­pen. At first I begged God for mer­cy, but soon it dawned on me that there would be no mer­cy com­ing.” Ajamu, Bridgeman, and Jackson were exon­er­at­ed in 2014 after the only wit­ness — who was only 13 at the time of the mur­der — recant­ed his testimony.

Kirk Bloodsworth, who National Geographic calls ​“a tire­less cam­paign­er against cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment,” was the first death-row sur­vivor to be exon­er­at­ed by DNA test­ing. Now exec­u­tive direc­tor of WTI, Bloodsworth says, ​“When I tell peo­ple my sto­ry and how easy it is to be con­vict­ed of some­thing of which you’re inno­cent, it often caus­es them to rethink the way the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem works. It doesn’t require much of a stretch to believe that inno­cent peo­ple have been executed.”

The sto­ry also notes the dif­fi­cul­ties exonerees face once they are released. Having endured the trau­ma of a wrong­ful con­vic­tion and spent years or even decades in prison, exonerees often strug­gle to reac­cli­mate to life out­side of prison. Exoneree Ron Keine, who spent two years on death row in New Mexico, said his expe­ri­ence inspired him to help oth­er exonerees obtain com­pen­sa­tion from the gov­ern­ment and devel­op life skills. ​“I decid­ed that I was going to go from dead man walk­ing to dead man talk­ing,” he said of his work tes­ti­fy­ing before state leg­is­la­tures. ​“When peo­ple get off death row, they feel like a piece of shit. They don’t have any self-worth — no self-esteem, and they usu­al­ly don’t have two nick­els in their pock­et. We try to build them up. We try and help them find the resources they need to survive.”

The arti­cle, Sentenced to death, but inno­cent, appears in the March 2021 issue of National Geographic, which fea­tures a cov­er sto­ry on the explo­ration of Mars. For more on this sto­ry, vis­it: https://​www​.nation​al​geo​graph​ic​.com/​m​a​g​a​z​i​n​e​/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​s​e​n​t​e​n​c​e​d​-​t​o​-​d​e​a​t​h​-​b​u​t​-​i​n​n​o​c​e​n​t​-​t​h​e​s​e​-​a​r​e​-​s​t​o​r​i​e​s​-​o​f​-​j​u​s​t​i​c​e​-​g​o​n​e​-​w​r​o​n​g​-​f​e​ature.