Two More Exonerations From Death Row: 137^th and 138^th Persons Freed in Oklahoma

Two for­mer death row inmates who were charged with mur­der in a 1993 dri­ve-by shoot­ing were released on October 2 after spend­ing near­ly 14 years in prison, includ­ing years on Oklahoma’s death row. District Attorney David Prater dropped charges against Yancy Douglas (left),35, and Paris Powell (right), 36, after decid­ing the state’s key wit­ness was unre­li­able. ​“Ethically, and on my duty, I could not pro­ceed in this case and had to dis­miss it,” Prater said. Derrick Smith, a rival gang mem­ber to the defen­dants and the state’s main wit­ness, was one of the appar­ent tar­gets in the shoot­ing. A fed­er­al appeals court in 2006 found that Smith had received a deal from the pros­e­cu­tors that was not revealed to the defense and over­turned Powell’s con­vic­tion. Douglas was denied relief until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10^th Circuit over­turned his con­vic­tion and affirmed Powell’s rever­sal in 2009. Smith tes­ti­fied against Powell and Douglas in their ear­li­er tri­als (Douglas, 1995, Powell, 1997), but lat­er admit­ted he nev­er saw who shot him, that he was drunk and high that night, and that he tes­ti­fied only because pros­e­cu­tors had threat­ened him with more prison time.

The District Attorney added, ​“We all came to the opin­ion that with­out Derrick Smith, we did not have a case we could prove beyond a rea­son­able doubt.” Jack Fisher, Powell’s attor­ney, said his client has always main­tained his inno­cence and that Powell’s release is ​“bit­ter­sweet. It should have hap­pened a long time ago. It’s unfor­tu­nate that he had to spend 16 years of his life in jail. What it boils down to is they had no evi­dence he was guilty. The tes­ti­mo­ny that they used to con­vict him was false.”

(S. Murphy, ​“Two ex-death row inmates released from Oklahoma prison,” Associated Press, October 5, 2009; R. Surette, ​“Why 2 Death Row Inmates Were Set Free,” News9​.com, Oct. 6, 2009). See Innocence.

Douglas was the 137^th inmate exon­er­at­ed from death row since 1973, and Powell is the 138^th, accord­ing to a list of exon­er­a­tions main­tained by the Death Penalty Information Center. Ten inmates have been exon­er­at­ed and freed from Oklahoma. The cri­te­ria for inclu­sion on the list are: