As voters get set to cast ballots on death penalty questions in California, Nebraska, and Oklahoma, U.S. death row exonerees from across the country have been scouring those states in an effort to inform the public of the risks of wrongful executions. On September 19, 17 of the nation’s 156 death-row exonerees appeared at a California press conference advocating approval of Proposition 62, which would replace the death penalty with life without parole plus restitution, and defeat of Proposition 66, which seeks to place limits on the capital appeals process. Many, including California exoneree Shujaa Graham (pictured), Florida exoneree Juan Melendez, Arizona exonerees Ray Krone and Debra Milke, and Louisiana exoneree Damon Thibodeaux urged a no vote on Prop. 66, arguing that they would have been executed without the chance to prove their innocence if a measure like it had been effect when they were sentenced to death. A few days earlier, Illinois exoneree Randy Steidl and Ohio exoneree Kwame Ajamu spoke to the Oklahoma Republican Liberty Caucus, a group described by its chairman, Logan County Commissioner Marven Goodman, as “disenfranchised conservatives” who, as a result of their distrust of government regulation are questioning the death penalty. Steidl and Ajamu told the caucus about their wrongful capital convictions and raised concerns about the effects of limitations on judicial review under Oklahoma ballot question 776, which would bar Oklahoma courts from ruling that the imposition of the death penalty constituted cruel or unusual punishment or “contravene[d] any provision of the Oklahoma Constitution.” Steidl, who was wrongfully convicted in Illinois in 1987 and exonerated in 2004, stressed the importance of appellate review in securing his exoneration: “Without the judicial review I finally got, I’d be dead today or at least be languishing in prison,” he said. “I really believe that Oklahoma’s track record so far is not very pretty when you’ve got 10 people that’s been exonerated.” And in Nebraska, Maryland’s Kirk Bloodsworth, the first former death row prisoner to be exonerated by DNA, taped an ad on behalf of Retain A Just Nebraska, the advocacy committee opposing a voter referendum that could overturn the state legislature’s repeal of Nebraska’s death penalty. In the ad, Bloodsworth says: “You could free a man from prison, but you cannot free him from the grave. You can not un-execute someone. … If it can happen to an honorably discharged marine with no criminal record or criminal history, it could happen to anybody in America.”
(J. White, “Capitol Alert: Exoneration Nation,” Sacramento Bee, September 19, 2016; J. Coburn, “Oklahoma conservative group examines death penalty,” Edmond Sun, September 16, 2016; C. Tolan, “This former death row inmate has a powerful message for Nebraskans voting on the death penalty,” Fusion, July 12, 2016) See New Voices and Oklahoma. You can see the Facebook livestream of the California press conference featuring 17 death-row exonerees here.
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