Op-Ed by Death-Row Exoneree Derrick Jamison: ​“I was Within 90 Minutes of Execution for a Crime I Didn’t Commit”

Derrick Jamison sur­vived six death war­rants dur­ing his two decades on Ohio​’s death row, com­ing with­in 90 min­utes of being exe­cut­ed. After he was exon­er­at­ed, on the day he walked free, his best friend on death row was exe­cut­ed. His sto­ry, he writes in a July 11, 2020 op-ed in the Tampa Bay Times, ​“illus­trates every­thing that is wrong with the death penal­ty” and why it should be abolished.

Jamison (pic­tured) was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1985 for the mur­der of a Cincinnati bar­tender. His con­vic­tion hinged on the tes­ti­mo­ny of Charles Howell, a co-defen­dant who avoid­ed the death penal­ty by false­ly impli­cat­ing Jamison. The pros­e­cu­tion with­held state­ments that con­tra­dict­ed Howell’s tes­ti­mo­ny, under­mined the prosecution’s the­o­ry of how the mur­der occurred, and estab­lished that a pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness had actu­al­ly iden­ti­fied two oth­er men as the mur­der­ers. In 2000, a fed­er­al dis­trict court judge over­turned Jamison’s con­vic­tion, rul­ing that the police and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct had denied him a fair tri­al. It took almost five more years — until February 28, 2005 — before the charges against him were finally dismissed.

Jamison writes that his expe­ri­ence ​“is not an iso­lat­ed inci­dent. My wrong­ful con­vic­tion was the result of a deeply flawed sys­tem, a sys­tem that is infect­ed with racial bias and risks the exe­cu­tion of the inno­cent.” He says the American legal sys­tem oper­ates under ​“a dou­ble stan­dard when it comes to find­ing jus­tice …. If you are a per­son of col­or or a low-income cit­i­zen, the pur­suit of jus­tice can be an elu­sive one. But if you are rich, access to resources can make all the dif­fer­ence in the world. It can be the dif­fer­ence between free­dom and a life behind bars for a crime you didn’t commit.”

Jamison’s op-ed recounts the six exe­cu­tion dates he faced. He writes, ​“All six exe­cu­tions were lat­er stayed by the gov­er­nor, the last came with­in 90 min­utes of my sched­uled exe­cu­tion. I was asked about my Last Rites, where my dead body was to be sent, and what I want­ed for my last meal.” Ohio con­duct­ed 18 exe­cu­tions while Jamison was on death row, includ­ing that of William Williams, his best friend in prison. Williams was exe­cut­ed on October 25, 2005 — the same day Jamison was released. Jamison writes that his ​“sto­ry ends dif­fer­ent­ly than most. I am the sur­vivor of what could have been a legal lynching.”

The death penal­ty affects more than the con­demned pris­on­er, it destroys entire fam­i­lies, Jamison says. ​“My par­ents died from the agony and pain of hav­ing a son on death row,” he writes. ​“My father, Joseph Jamison, died in 1987. My moth­er, Essie Jamison, spent 12 years work­ing tire­less­ly and des­per­ate­ly to save me.… [She] died before she could see me walk into the sun­shine as a free man.”

Though Jamison was exon­er­at­ed in 2005, he has received nei­ther an apol­o­gy nor any form of com­pen­sa­tion from the state of Ohio. He notes that his expe­ri­ence on death row is not an iso­lat­ed inci­dent and is the byprod­uct of a deeply flawed, racial­ly-dis­crim­i­na­to­ry sys­tem prone to exe­cut­ing the inno­cent. “[L]egal or not,” he says, ​“lynch­ing must end.”