Executed But Possibly Innocent

There is no way to tell how many of the 1,607 peo­ple exe­cut­ed since 1976 may also have been inno­cent. Courts do not gen­er­al­ly enter­tain claims of inno­cence when the defen­dant is dead. Defense attor­neys move on to oth­er cas­es where clients’ lives can still be saved.

It is now broad­ly accept­ed that the judi­cial review pro­vid­ed to death-penal­ty cas­es in the United States has been inad­e­quate to pre­vent the exe­cu­tion of at least some pris­on­ers who were wrong­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death. Some cas­es with strong evi­dence of innocence include:

• Carlos DeLuna (Texas, con­vict­ed 1983, executed 1989)
• Ruben Cantu (Texas, con­vict­ed 1985, executed 1993)
• Larry Griffin (Missouri, con­vict­ed 1981, executed 1995)
• Joseph O’Dell (Virginia, con­vict­ed 1986, executed 1997)
• David Spence (Texas, con­vict­ed 1984, executed 1997)
• Leo Jones (Florida, con­vict­ed 1981, executed 1998)
• Gary Graham (Texas, con­vict­ed 1981, executed 2000)
• Claude Jones (Texas, con­vict­ed 1989, executed 2000)
• Cameron Todd Willingham (Texas, con­vict­ed 1992, executed 2004)
• Sedley Alley (Tennessee, con­vict­ed 1987, executed 2006)
• Troy Davis (Georgia, con­vict­ed 1991, executed 2011)
• Lester Bower (Texas, con­vict­ed 1984, executed 2015)
• Brian Terrell (Georgia, con­vict­ed 1995, executed 2015)
• Richard Masterson (Texas, con­vict­ed 2002, executed 2016)
• Robert Pruett (Texas, con­vict­ed 2002, executed 2017)
• Carlton Michael Gary (Georgia, con­vict­ed 1986, executed 2018)
• Domineque Ray (Alabama, con­vict­ed 1999; executed 2019)
• Larry Swearingen (Texas, con­vict­ed 2000, executed 2019)
• Walter Barton (Missouri, con­vict­ed 1993, executed 2020)
• Nathaniel Woods (Alabama, con­vict­ed 2005, executed 2020)
• Marcellus Williams (Missouri, con­vict­ed in 2001, executed 2024)

Carlos DeLuna

Texas — Convicted: 1983; Executed: 1989

A Chicago Tribune inves­ti­ga­tion released in 2006 revealed ground­break­ing evi­dence that Texas may have exe­cut­ed an inno­cent man in 1989. The defen­dant, Carlos DeLuna, was exe­cut­ed for the fatal stab­bing of Texas con­ve­nience store clerk Wanda Lopez in 1983. The evi­dence uncov­ered by reporters Maurice Possley and Steve Mills cast doubt on DeLuna’s guilt and points towards anoth­er man, Carlos Hernandez, who had a record of sim­i­lar crimes and repeat­ed­ly con­fessed to the murder. 

A news piece aired on ABC’s ​“World News Tonight” also cov­ered this sto­ry. The new evi­dence cast strong doubt on DeLuna’s guilt. 

Subsequent inves­ti­ga­tion by Professor James Liebman of Columbia Law School and a team of his stu­dents in the Columbia DeLuna Project unearthed pow­er­ful evi­dence of DeLuna’s inno­cence and described in detail seri­ous prob­lems in the pros­e­cu­tion’s case against him. Their 2014 book, The Wrong Carlos: Anatomy of a Wrongful Execution, describes the faulty eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny, the police’s fail­ure to inves­ti­gate Carlos Hernandez, and the mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions by the pros­e­cu­tion that ​“the oth­er Carlos” DeLuna claimed com­mit­ted the killing was ​“a phan­tom,” while one of the pros­e­cu­tors knew of Hernandez’s exis­tence and his crim­i­nal his­to­ry. Hernandez and DeLuna looked so sim­i­lar that their own fam­i­lies mis­took pho­tos of the men for each oth­er. Moreover, Hernandez had a his­to­ry of vio­lent crimes sim­i­lar to the mur­der for which DeLuna was exe­cut­ed. Professor Liebman’s web­site for the book includes extra­or­di­nar­i­ly detailed doc­u­men­ta­tion of the case, includ­ing police and wit­ness records, tri­al tran­scripts, and photographs.

In 2021, Netflix released a crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed doc­u­men­tary film, The Phantom, about the case.

See Professor James Liebman and the Columbia DeLuna Project, The Wrong Carlos: Anatomy of a Wrongful Execution (Columbia Universty Press, 2014).
For a short­er ver­sion of Professor James Liebman’s inves­ti­ga­tion, see Los Tocayos Carlos: Anatomy of a Wrongful Execution (2012).
See the Chicago Tribune’s Investigation, Did This Man Die…for This Man’s Crime?
Watch the doc­u­men­tary film, The Phantom, writ­ten and direct­ed by Patrick Forbes (2021).

Ruben Cantu

Texas — Convicted: 1985; Executed: 1993

A two-part inves­tiga­tive series by the Houston Chronicle cast seri­ous doubt on the guilt of a Texas man who was exe­cut­ed in 1993. Ruben Cantu had per­sis­tent­ly pro­claimed his inno­cence and was only 17 when he was charged with cap­i­tal mur­der for the shoot­ing death of a San Antonio man dur­ing an attempt­ed rob­bery. Now, the pros­e­cu­tor and the jury fore­woman have expressed doubts about the case. Moreover, both a key eye­wit­ness in the state’s case against Cantu and Cantu’s co-defen­dant have come for­ward to say that Texas exe­cut­ed an innocent man.

Juan Moreno, who was wound­ed dur­ing the attempt­ed rob­bery and was a key eye­wit­ness in the case against Cantu, now says that it was not Cantu who shot him and that he only iden­ti­fied Cantu as the shoot­er because he felt pres­sured and was afraid of the author­i­ties. Moreno said that he twice told police that Cantu was not his assailant, but that the author­i­ties con­tin­ued to pres­sure him to iden­ti­fy Cantu as the shoot­er after Cantu was involved in an unre­lat­ed wound­ing of a police offi­cer. ​“The police were sure it was (Cantu) because he had hurt a police offi­cer. They told me they were cer­tain it was him, and that’s why I tes­ti­fied.… That was bad to blame some­one that was not there,” Moreno told the Chronicle.

In addi­tion, David Garza, Cantu’s co-defen­dant dur­ing his 1985 tri­al, recent­ly signed a sworn affi­davit say­ing that he allowed Cantu to be accused and exe­cut­ed even though he was­n’t with him on the night of the killing. Garza stat­ed, ​“Part of me died when he died. You’ve got a 17-year-old who went to his grave for some­thing he did not do. Texas mur­dered an innocent person.”

Sam D. Millsap, Jr., the Bexar County District Attorney who charged Cantu with cap­i­tal mur­der, said he nev­er should have sought the death penal­ty in a case based on tes­ti­mo­ny from an eye­wit­ness who iden­ti­fied a sus­pect only after police showed him Cantu’s pho­to three seperate times.

Miriam Ward, fore­woman of the jury that con­vict­ed Cantu, said the jury’s deci­sion was the best they could do based on the infor­ma­tion pre­sent­ed dur­ing the tri­al. She not­ed, ​“With a lit­tle extra work, a lit­tle extra effort, maybe we’d have got­ten the right infor­ma­tion. The bot­tom line is, an inno­cent per­son was put to death for it. We all have our fin­ger in that.” (Houston Chronicle, November 20 & 21, 2005 and Associated Press, November 21, 2005).

Read ​“Did Texas Execute An Innocent Man?” by Lise Olsen, Houston Chronicle (2005)
Watch ​“Did Texas Execute Innocent Men?” — Dan Rather Reports reveals new details sur­round­ing two cap­i­tal mur­der cas­es in Texas — lead­ing to the exe­cu­tions of Ruben Cantu and Carlos De Luna that may have occurred as the result of flawed evi­dence (September 2007).

UPDATE: Bexar County District Attorney Susan Reed issued a report in 2007 find­ing that Ruben Cantu was guilty of the crime for which Texas exe­cut­ed him in 1993. However, crit­ics have not­ed that Reed was for­mer­ly a judge who han­dled Cantu’s appeal and set his exe­cu­tion date, rais­ing a con­flict of inter­est in con­duc­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion of his guilt. For more infor­ma­tion see: ​“Report Fails to Erase Doubt that Texas Executed an Innocent Man.”

Larry Griffin

Missouri — Convicted: 1981; Executed: 1995

A year-long inves­ti­ga­tion by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund has uncov­ered evi­dence that Larry Griffin may have been inno­cent of the crime for which he was exe­cut­ed by the state of Missouri on June 21, 1995. Griffin main­tained his inno­cence until his death, and inves­ti­ga­tors say his case is the strongest demon­stra­tion yet of an exe­cu­tion of an inno­cent man. The report notes that a man injured in the same dri­ve-by shoot­ing that claimed the life of Quintin Moss says Griffin was not involved in the crime, and the first police offi­cer on the scene has giv­en a new account that under­mines the tri­al tes­ti­mo­ny of the only wit­ness who iden­ti­fied Griffin as the mur­der­er. Based on its find­ings, the NAACP has sup­plied the pros­e­cu­tion with the names of three men it sus­pects com­mit­ted the crime, and all three of the sus­pects are cur­rent­ly in jail for oth­er mur­ders. Prosecutor Jennifer Joyce said she has reopened the inves­ti­ga­tion and will con­duct a com­pre­hen­sive review of the case over the next few months. ​“There is no real doubt that we have an inno­cent per­son. If we could go to tri­al on this case, if there was a forum where we could take this to tri­al, we would win hands down,” stat­ed University of Michigan law pro­fes­sor Samuel Gross, who super­vised the inves­ti­ga­tion into Griffin’s case. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 11, 2005). 

See ​“NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Report on Larry Griffin”
Listen to ​“Missouri Execution Case Reopened” from NPR: All Things Considered (July 12, 2005)
Read ​“Did Missouri Execute An Innocent Man?” by Associated Press (July 12, 2005)

UPDATE: On July 12, 2007 the St. Louis Circuit Attorney con­clud­ed that Larry Griffin was guilty after an extensive review.

• Circuit Attorney report: Summary
• Circuit Attorney report: Factual and legal history
• Circuit Attorney report: Appellate process
• Circuit Attorney report: Investigative find­ings, analy­sis and conclusions
• Circuit Attorney report: Appendix A through C
• Circuit Attorney report: Appendix D through G

Joseph O’Dell

Virginia — Convicted: 1986; Executed: 1997

New DNA blood evi­dence has thrown con­sid­er­able doubt on the mur­der and rape con­vic­tion of O’Dell. In review­ing his case in 1991, three Supreme Court Justices, said they had doubts about O’Dell’s guilt and whether he should have been allowed to rep­re­sent him­self. Without the blood evi­dence, there is lit­tle link­ing O’Dell to the crime. In September, 1996, the 4^th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals rein­stat­ed his death sen­tence and upheld his con­vic­tion. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review O’Dell’s claims of inno­cence and held that its deci­sion regard­ing juries being told about the alter­na­tive sen­tence of life-with­out-parole was not retroac­tive to his case. O’Dell asked the state to con­duct DNA tests on oth­er pieces of evi­dence to demon­strate his inno­cence but was refused. He was exe­cut­ed on July 23^rd.

Read ​“Virginia Inmate Executed Despite International Campaign” by CNN (July 23, 1997)
See ​“Commonwealth v. Joseph O’Dell: Truth and Justice or Confuse the Courts? The DNA Controversy” by Lori Urs, New England School of Law: Journal on Criminal and Civil Confinement (Winter 1999)

David Spence

Texas — Convicted: 1984; Executed: 1997

Spence was charged with mur­der­ing three teenagers in 1982. He was alleged­ly hired by a con­ve­nience store own­er to kill anoth­er girl, and killed these vic­tims by mis­take. The con­ve­nience store own­er, Muneer Deeb, was orig­i­nal­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death, but then was acquit­ted at a re-tri­al. The police lieu­tenant who super­vised the inves­ti­ga­tion of Spence, Marvin Horton, lat­er con­clud­ed: ​“I do not think David Spence com­mit­ted this crime.” Ramon Salinas, the homi­cide detec­tive who actu­al­ly con­duct­ed the inves­ti­ga­tion, said: ​“My opin­ion is that David Spence was inno­cent. Nothing from the inves­ti­ga­tion ever led us to any evi­dence that he was involved.” No phys­i­cal evi­dence con­nect­ed Spence to the crime. The case against Spence was pur­sued by a zeal­ous nar­cotics cop who relied on tes­ti­mo­ny of prison inmates who were grant­ed favors in return for testimony.

Read ​“A Closer Look at Five Cases That Resulted in Executions of Texas Inmates” by Raymond Bonner and Sara Rimer, New York Times (May 14, 2000)

Leo Jones

Florida — Convicted: 1981; Executed: 1998

Jones was con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing a police offi­cer in Jacksonville, Florida. Jones signed a con­fes­sion after sev­er­al hours of police inter­ro­ga­tion, but he lat­er claimed the con­fes­sion was coerced. In the mid-1980s, the police­man who arrest­ed Jones and the detec­tive who took his con­fes­sion were forced out of uni­form for eth­i­cal vio­la­tions. The police­man was lat­er iden­ti­fied by a fel­low offi­cer as an ​“enforcer” who had used tor­ture. Many wit­ness­es came for­ward point­ing to anoth­er sus­pect in the case.

Read ​“Questions of Innocence: Legal Roadblocks Thwart New Evidence on Appeal” by Steve Mills, Chicago Tribune (December 18, 2000) 

Gary Graham

Texas — Convicted: 1981; Executed: 2000

On June 22, 2000, Gary Graham was exe­cut­ed in Texas, despite claims that he was inno­cent. Graham was 17 when he was charged with the 1981 rob­bery and shoot­ing of Bobby Lambert out­side a Houston super­mar­ket. He was con­vict­ed pri­mar­i­ly on the tes­ti­mo­ny of one wit­ness, Bernadine Skillern, who said she saw the killer’s face for a few sec­onds through her car wind­shield, from a dis­tance of 30 – 40 feet away. Two oth­er wit­ness­es, both who worked at the gro­cery store and said they got a good look at the assailant, said Graham was not the killer but were nev­er inter­viewed by Graham’s court appoint­ed attor­ney, Ronald Mock, and were not called to tes­ti­fy at tri­al. Three of the jurors who vot­ed to con­vict Graham signed affi­davits say­ing they would have vot­ed dif­fer­ent­ly had all of the evi­dence been avail­able.

See ​“Guilt of Texas Inmate Gary Graham Debated as Execution Draws Near” by CNN (June 21, 2000)
Read ​“Death Row Man Executed” by BBC News (June 23, 2000)
See DPIC’s Capital Punishment in Context: The Case of Gary Graham

Claude Jones

Texas — Convicted: 1989; Executed: 2000

DNA tests raise seri­ous doubts about the con­vic­tion of Claude Jones, exe­cut­ed in Texas in 2000. The tests revealed that a strand of hair found at the scene of a liquor-store shoot­ing did not belong to Jones, as was orig­i­nal­ly implied by the pros­e­cu­tion. Instead, the hair belonged to the vic­tim. Jones was exe­cut­ed for the mur­der of the store’s own­er. The strand of hair was the only piece of phys­i­cal evi­dence that placed Jones at the scene of the crime, and this rev­e­la­tion rais­es the ques­tion of whether Texas exe­cut­ed the wrong per­son for the mur­der. Before his exe­cu­tion in 2000, Jones’s lawyers filed peti­tions for a stay with both a dis­trict court and with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, request­ing that the strand of hair be sub­mit­ted for DNA test­ing. The nec­es­sary DNA tech­nol­o­gy had not been devel­oped at the time the crime in 1989, but was avail­able in 2000. Both courts, along with then-Governor George W. Bush, denied Jones a stay of exe­cu­tion. Apparently, Gov. Bush was not even informed by his clemen­cy advi­sors about the request for the DNA test. Barry Scheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project, said ​“The DNA results prove that tes­ti­mo­ny about the hair sam­ple on which this entire case rests was just wrong. Unreliable foren­sic sci­ence and a com­plete­ly inad­e­quate post-con­vic­tion review process cost Claude Jones his life.”

In 2007, the Innocence Project, along with the Texas Observer, the Innocence Project of Texas and the Texas Innocence Network filed a law­suit to obtain the hair for DNA test­ing. In 2010, Judge Paul Murphy ruled in favor of the Observer and the inno­cence groups and ordered pros­e­cu­tors to turn over the evi­dence for DNA test­ing. Duane Jones, Claude Jones’s son, said, ​“Knowing that these DNA results sup­port his inno­cence means so much to me, my son in the mil­i­tary and the rest of my fam­i­ly. I hope these results will serve as a wake­up call to every­one that seri­ous prob­lems exist in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem that must be fixed if our soci­ety is to con­tin­ue using the death penal­ty.” Jones was one of the last inmates exe­cut­ed before Gov. Bush left office to become President.

(D. Mann, ​“Texas Observer Exclusive: DNA Tests Undermine Evidence in Texas Execution,” Texas Observer, November 11, 2010). 

Cameron Willingham

Texas — Convicted: 1992; Executed: 2004

After exam­in­ing evi­dence from the cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion of Cameron Willingham, four nation­al arson experts have con­clud­ed that the orig­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion of Willingham’s case was flawed, and it is pos­si­ble the fire was acci­den­tal. The inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion, report­ed by the Chicago Tribune, found that pros­e­cu­tors and arson inves­ti­ga­tors used arson the­o­ries that have since been repu­di­at­ed by sci­en­tif­ic advances. Willingham was exe­cut­ed in 2004 in Texas despite his con­sis­tent claims of inno­cence. He was con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing his three chil­dren in a 1991 house fire.

Arson expert Gerald Hurst said, ​“There’s noth­ing to sug­gest to any rea­son­able arson inves­ti­ga­tor that this was an arson fire. It was just a fire.” Former Louisiana State University fire instruc­tor Kendall Ryland added, “[It] made me sick to think this guy was exe­cut­ed based on this inves­ti­ga­tion.… They exe­cut­ed this guy and they’ve just got no idea — at least not sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly — if he set the fire, or if the fire was even intentionally set.”

Willingham was con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal mur­der after arson inves­ti­ga­tors con­clud­ed that 20 indi­ca­tors of arson led them to believe that an accel­erent had been used to set three sep­a­rate fires inside his home. Among the only oth­er evi­dence pre­sent­ed by pros­e­cu­tors dur­ing the the tri­al was tes­ti­mo­ny from jail­house snitch Johnny E. Webb, a drug addict on psy­chi­atric med­ica­tion, who claimed Willingham had con­fessed to him in the coun­ty jail. Evidence dis­cov­ered years after the Willingham exe­cu­tion showed that the pros­e­cu­tion had giv­en Webb favor­able treat­ment, then delib­er­ate­ly elicit­ed per­jured tes­ti­mo­ny from Webb that he had been promised and giv­en noth­ing for his tes­ti­mo­ny. (The Marshall Project, August 3, 2014).

Some of the jurors who con­vict­ed Willingham were trou­bled when told of the new case review. Juror Dorinda Brokofsky asked, ​“Did any­body know about this pri­or to his exe­cu­tion? Now I will have to live with this for the rest of my life. Maybe this man was inno­cent.” Prior to the exe­cu­tion, Willingham’s defense attor­neys pre­sent­ed expert tes­ti­mo­ny regard­ing the new arson inves­ti­ga­tion to the state’s high­est court, as well as to Texas Governor Rick Perry. No relief was grant­ed and Willingham was exe­cut­ed on February 17, 2004. Coincidentally, less than a year after Willingham’s exe­cu­tion, arson evi­dence pre­sent­ed by some of the same experts who had appealed for relief in Willingham’s case helped free Ernest Willis from Texas’s death row. The experts not­ed that the evi­dence in the Willingham case was near­ly iden­ti­cal to the evi­dence used to exon­er­ate Willis. (Chicago Tribune, December 9, 2004).

Read ​“Texas Man Executed on Disproved Forensics” by Steve Mills and Maurice Possley, Chicago Tribune (December 9, 2004)
Read ​“Was an Innocent Man Executed in Texas?” by Anderson Cooper 360 Blog (April 9, 2007)
Read ​“The Prosecutor and the Snitch. Did Texas exe­cute an inno­cent man?” by Maurice Possley, The Marshall Project (August 3, 2014)
See also The Ernest Willis Case

Sedley Alley

Tennessee — Convicted: 1987; Executed: 2006

Sedley Alley was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1987 for the rape and mur­der of Lance Cpl. Suzanne Collins near the bar­racks of the Naval Air Station in Millington, Tennessee. The lawyers appoint­ed to rep­re­sent him at tri­al failed to inves­ti­gate glar­ing incon­sis­ten­cies between the phys­i­cal evi­dence and a con­fes­sion Alley con­sis­tent­ly said had been coerced. Instead, with no pri­or his­to­ry of men­tal ill­ness, they argued that he suf­fered from a mul­ti­ple-per­son­al­i­ty dis­or­der and was not guilty by rea­son of insanity. 

In 2003, after Alley had lost his appeals, new lawyers were appoint­ed to rep­re­sent him in clemen­cy pro­ceed­ings. The clemen­cy lawyers found numer­ous incon­sis­ten­cies in the state’s evi­dence, unearthed evi­dence that point­ed to anoth­er sus­pect who fit the eye­wit­ness descrip­tions of the mur­der­er and had a car that matched descrip­tions of the murderer’s car, and dis­cov­ered that Alley had been at home under police sur­veil­lance at the time Collins was raped and killed. Based on these dis­cov­er­ies, they asked for DNA test­ing of cloth­ing and the murder weapon. 

The evi­dence per­suad­ed the Tennessee Board of Parole to rec­om­mend that then-Governor Phil Bredesen stay Alley’s exe­cu­tion and order DNA test­ing. Instead, Bredesen direct­ed the lawyers to present their request for test­ing to the Tennessee courts, which refused to allow the test­ing to occur. Five years lat­er, the Tennessee Supreme Court dis­avowed its deci­sion in Alley’s case, say­ing they had mis­ap­plied Tennessee’s post-con­vic­tion DNA test­ing act. On May 1, 2019, after new evi­dence sug­gest­ed anoth­er man may have com­mit­ted the mur­der, the Innocence Project filed a peti­tion in Shelby County Criminal Court on behalf of Alley’s estate renew­ing Alley’s request for DNA test­ing. ​“The courts got it wrong in 2006 when they allowed Mr. Alley to be exe­cut­ed before test­ing the DNA,” Innocence Project co-founder Barry Scheck said. ​“If Mr. Alley were alive today, he would be enti­tled to DNA test­ing under the … statute. We now have a chance to learn the truth in this case.”

The tri­al court denied the Alley estate’s peti­tion, and the estate has appealed. 

Read Death Penalty Information Center, Estate of Executed Tennessee Prisoner Seeks DNA Testing to Establish His Innocence, May 2, 2019.
Jim Dwyer, Her Father Was Executed for Murder. She Still Wants to Know if He Did It, New York Times, May 1, 2019.
Adam Tamburin, Family of exe­cut­ed Tennessee inmate calls for DNA tests in renewed hope to ​‘find the truth’, Commercial Appeal, May 1, 2019
Read the Petition for Post-Conviction DNA Analysis filed in In re: Sedley Alley and the Application for DNA Testing, Pardon, and Exoneration of Sedley Alley sent to Gov. Bob Lee. 

Troy Davis

Georgia — Convicted: 1991; Executed: 2011

After a hear­ing on September 19, 2011, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemen­cy to Troy Davis, despite pre­sen­ta­tion of tes­ti­mo­ny cast­ing doubt on his guilt. Brian Kammer, one of Davis’s attor­neys, said, ​“I am utter­ly shocked and dis­ap­point­ed at the fail­ure of our jus­tice sys­tem at all lev­els to cor­rect a mis­car­riage of jus­tice.” Davis’s claims of inno­cence received inter­na­tion­al atten­tion, and calls for clemen­cy were made by Pope Benedict XVI, for­mer President Jimmy Carter, for­mer FBI Director William Sessions, for­mer Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Norman Fletcher and others. 

Doubts about Davis’s guilt were raised when some pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness­es changed their sto­ries after giv­ing tes­ti­mo­ny against Davis, includ­ing accu­sa­tions point­ing to anoth­er sus­pect as the mur­der­er of a police offi­cer in Savannah. The Board heard tes­ti­mo­ny from a juror in Davis’s orig­i­nal tri­al who now says she has too much doubt about his guilt and would change her ver­dict. They also heard from a wit­ness who orig­i­nal­ly tes­ti­fied against Davis, but has since recant­ed her tes­ti­mo­ny, and from Davis’s fam­i­ly. The Board had held two pre­vi­ous clemen­cy hear­ings for Davis, but the make­up of the Board had changed since he was denied clemen­cy in 2008, and new tes­ti­mo­ny had been giv­en at a fed­er­al court hear­ing in 2010. Davis was exe­cut­ed late on the night of Sept. 21, 2011. The U.S. Supreme Court delayed the exe­cu­tion to con­sid­er final appeals, but then denied a stay.

Lester Bower

Texas — Convicted: 1984; Executed: 2015

Texas exe­cut­ed Lester Bower on June 3, 2015, after he had spent more than 30 years on death row. Bower unsuc­cess­ful­ly chal­lenged his con­vic­tion and sen­tence on numer­ous grounds, includ­ing that pros­e­cu­tors had with­held evi­dence from the defense sup­port­ing his innocence claim. 

Bower was con­vict­ed of the 1983 mur­der of four men in Grayson County, Texas. He admit­ted that he had met with one of the men to pur­chase an ultra­light air­craft, which he said the oth­ers helped him dis­as­sem­ble and load into his truck. But he con­sis­tent­ly denied any involve­ment in the killings. The evi­dence against him was cir­cum­stan­tial: calls made to the man sell­ing the air­craft and Bower’s pos­ses­sion of the same type of ammu­ni­tion that was used in the killings. Prosecutors obtained the con­vic­tion, in part, by argu­ing that the ammu­ni­tion pro­vid­ed a vital link between Bower and the killings because that type of ammu­ni­tion was extremely rare. 

After Bower’s con­vic­tion, his lawyers obtained records from the FBI and pros­e­cu­tors show­ing that the ammu­ni­tion was not as rare as pros­e­cu­tors had said, and learned that pros­e­cu­tors had with­held infor­ma­tion about a tip to police that the mur­ders may have been con­nect­ed to drug traf­fick­ing. Later, a woman came for­ward say­ing that her boyfriend and his friends had com­mit­ted the mur­ders after a drug deal had gone wrong. The wife of one of the oth­er men cor­rob­o­rat­ed her story. 

In a court fil­ing short­ly before his exe­cu­tion, Bower’s attor­neys argued ​“This is a case in which there is a sig­nif­i­cant lin­ger­ing doubt regard­ing guilt or inno­cence.” In addi­tion to issues relat­ed to his inno­cence, three Supreme Court jus­tices said that Bower should have been grant­ed a new sen­tenc­ing hear­ing as a result of what they called a ​“glar­ing” con­sti­tu­tion­al error that impaired the jury’s con­sid­er­a­tion of mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence in his case.

Read: ​“DOUBTS STILL PLAGUE THE 31-YEAR-OLD LESTER BOWER CASE BUT TEXAS IS ABOUT TO KILL HIM ANYWAY,” Jordan Smith, The Intercept, June 1, 2015.
Read: ​“Texas plans to exe­cute an inmate who has been on death row for 30 years,” by Mark Berman, The Washington Post, June 2, 2015.

Brian Terrell

Georgia — Convicted: 1995; Executed: 2015

Just before 1:00 a.m. on December 9, 2015, Georgia exe­cut­ed Brian Terrell. It took a nurse near­ly an hour to find a vein for the lethal injec­tion IV and, as the exe­cu­tion drug was being admin­is­tered, Terrell mouthed the words: ​“Didn’t do it.” His lawyers argued that no phys­i­cal evi­dence linked Terrell to the mur­der and that his con­vic­tion and death sen­tence were the prod­uct of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct and false and mis­lead­ing tes­ti­mo­ny. Physical evi­dence from the crime scene leaves sub­stan­tial ques­tions as to Terrell’s guilt: foot­prints found near the vic­tim’s body were small­er than Terrell’s feet, and none of the 13 fin­ger­prints found by inves­ti­ga­tors matched his fin­ger­prints. Georgia tried Terrell three times. The first tri­al end­ed in a mis­tri­al when jurors could not agree on whether he was guilty. The sec­ond result­ed in a con­vic­tion that was lat­er over­turned by the Georgia Supreme Court. The third tri­al con­clud­ed with a con­vic­tion and death sen­tence. The key tes­ti­mo­ny against Terrell came from his cousin, Jermaine Johnson, a wit­ness whom defense inves­ti­ga­tors say lat­er admit­ted to hav­ing lied to save him­self. Johnson spent a year in jail fac­ing the threat of the death penal­ty before he made a deal with pros­e­cu­tors to tes­ti­fy against Terrell in exchange for a five-year sen­tence. Johnson told defense inves­ti­ga­tors that police and pros­e­cu­tors had pres­sured him into giv­ing false tes­ti­mo­ny against his cousin. Terrell’s lawyers argued that pros­e­cu­tors also pre­sent­ed mis­lead­ing tes­ti­mo­ny sug­gest­ing that a neigh­bor had seen Terrell at the mur­der scene, when in fact she had told author­i­ties that he was not the man she had seen. At Terrell’s tri­al, the pros­e­cu­tor empha­sized the impor­tance of Johnson’s tes­ti­mo­ny, say­ing dur­ing his clos­ing state­ment, ​“If you nev­er heard any­thing about Jermaine Johnson in this case, if he had nev­er tes­ti­fied, would you have enough infor­ma­tion to make a deci­sion in this case? You wouldn’t.” 

Read: ​“Georgia man set to die for killing of moth­er’s friend,” Kate Brumback, Associated Press, December 5, 2015.
Read: ​“Clemency Hearing to be Held for Georgia Death Row Inmate,” Associated Press, December 5, 2015
Read: ​“Brian Keith Terrell appeals to fed­er­al court to stop exe­cu­tion,” Rhonda Cook, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, December 7, 2015;
Read: ​“Georgia Executes Brian Keith Terrell after strug­gling to find vein,” Rhonda Cook, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, December 9, 2015.
Read Brian Terrell’s appli­ca­tion for clemen­cy here.

Richard Masterson

Texas — Convicted: 2002; Executed: 2016

Texas exe­cut­ed Richard Masterson on January 20, 2016, amid ques­tions as to whether any mur­der had occurred at all. Masterson had sought a stay of exe­cu­tion based on what his lawyers alleged was ​“evi­dence of State fraud, mis­con­duct, and his actu­al inno­cence.” Masterson’s fil­ings chal­lenged the foren­sic tes­ti­mo­ny pre­sent­ed by the pros­e­cu­tion in the case, the accu­ra­cy of instruc­tions giv­en to jurors, and the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Texas’ lethal injec­tion secrecy law. 

Medical exam­in­er, Paul Shrode, after hav­ing been told that Masterson had con­fessed to putting a sleep­er hold on the vic­tim dur­ing an episode of erot­ic asphyx­i­a­tion, ruled Darrin Honeycutt’s death a homi­cide and tes­ti­fied that Honeycutt had died by stran­gu­la­tion. Masterson’s lawyers argued in fed­er­al court fil­ings that pros­e­cu­tors had con­cealed evi­dence that Shrode was unqual­i­fied to per­form Mr. Honeycutt’s autop­sy, botched the autop­sy, fal­si­fied his cre­den­tials, and gave false tes­ti­mo­ny in this case and in oth­er cap­i­tal mur­der tri­als. Two pathol­o­gists who exam­ined the Honeycutt autop­sy data say that the Shrode was unqual­i­fied and incor­rect­ly ruled the death a homi­cide, when it was most like­ly caused by a heart attack. 

In 2010, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland com­mut­ed the death sen­tence of Richard Nields based upon con­cerns about Dr. Shrode’s asser­tion that the vic­tim in that case had been stran­gled. Shrode was sub­se­quent­ly fired as chief med­ical exam­in­er in El Paso County, Texas, after dis­crep­an­cies were found in his resume and rev­e­la­tions were made about his unsup­port­ed tes­ti­mo­ny in the Ohio case. 

Masterson’s attor­neys argued that Masterson false­ly con­fessed to the mur­der charges dur­ing a peri­od of with­draw­al from addic­tive stim­u­lants in which he exhib­it­ed sui­ci­dal behav­ior. In a sep­a­rate fil­ing, they chal­lenged the fair­ness of his tri­al because the judge had failed to inform jurors that they could have con­vict­ed Masterson of a less­er offense, rather than cap­i­tal mur­der. A third fil­ing had chal­lenged the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of Texas’ lethal injec­tion secre­cy law, which pre­vent­ed inmates from obtain­ing infor­ma­tion about the source of the state’s execution drugs.

Read: ​“After court defeat, Houston killer’s lawyers launch appeals blitz in state and fed­er­al courts,” Allan Turner, Houston Chronicle, January 12, 2016.
Read: ​“DID A DUBIOUS CONFESSION SWAY A MEDICAL EXAMINER’S AUTOPSY IN A TEXAS DEATH PENALTY CASE?,” Jordan Smith, The Intercept, January 19, 2016.
Read: Masterson’s stay motion here and his peti­tion for writ of habeas cor­pus here.

Robert Pruett

Texas — Convicted: 2002; Executed: 2017

Texas exe­cut­ed Robert Pruett on October 12, 2017, after the Texas courts deemed DNA evi­dence in his case ​“incon­clu­sive” and denied him a stay of exe­cu­tion to fur­ther review the evi­dence in his case. Pruett was sen­tenced to death in 2002 for the 1999 stab­bing death of Officer Daniel Nagle, a state cor­rec­tion­al offi­cer who was at the cen­ter of a prison cor­rup­tion inves­ti­ga­tion. Pruett had long main­tained that he had been framed for the murder. 

Earlier on the day of the mur­der, Officer Nagle had giv­en Pruett a dis­ci­pli­nary write-up for eat­ing a sand­wich in an unau­tho­rized area. A bloody shank and a torn-up copy of the dis­ci­pli­nary report were found next to the officer’s body. Pruett had no his­to­ry of prison vio­lence. The pros­e­cu­tion’s case turned on dubi­ous tes­ti­mo­ny from prison infor­mants and the junk-sci­ence tes­ti­mo­ny of a foren­sic ana­lyst who linked the tape wrapped around the han­dle of the shank used to kill Nagle to the prison craft shop in which Pruett’s cell­mate worked. A state investigator’s notes that had not been dis­closed to the defense revealed that a key prison wit­ness — Harold Mitchell — had been promised a trans­fer to a prison close to his family’s home in Virginia if he tes­ti­fied against Pruett, and had been threat­ened with being charged with Nagle’s mur­der if he did not. 

Pruett’s post-con­vic­tion lawyers lat­er debunked the foren­sic method­ol­o­gy the state’s expert had used to link the tape on the mur­der weapon to Pruett, and results of a sub­se­quent DNA test of the mur­der weapon found DNA that did not match either Pruett or Nagle. According to Pruett’s clemen­cy peti­tion, Officer Nagle had been work­ing to iden­ti­fy cor­rupt cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers who had been help­ing prison gangs laun­der drug mon­ey, and Nagle’s name had been dis­cov­ered on a secret note that had been passed between inmates, which said that a prison gang want­ed the offi­cer dead. The same day Pruett was indict­ed, four cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers were indict­ed on fed­er­al bribery charges for par­tic­i­pat­ing in a drug smug­gling ring. Pruett’s lawyers argued that the uniden­ti­fied DNA may belong ​“to the per­son [who] killed Nagle.” 

Read: ​“Junk Science? Unreliable Witnesses? No Matter, Texas Plans to Execute Robert Pruett Anyway,” Nathalie Baptiste, Mother Jones, October 10, 2017.
Read: ​“Days from exe­cu­tion, man con­vict­ed in prison guard’s mur­der insists on inno­cence,” Jolie McCullough, The Texas Tribune, October 10, 2017;
Read: ​“Killer or Fall Guy? Was Daniel Nagle mur­dered by a man act­ing alone, or was it part of a larg­er con­spir­a­cy?,” Chase Hoffberger, The Austin Chronicle, April 24, 2015.

Carlton Michael Gary

Georgia — Convicted: 1986; Executed: 2018

Georgia exe­cut­ed Carlton Michael Gary on March 15, 2018 with­out any fed­er­al court review of sub­stan­tial evi­dence sug­gest­ing that he did not com­mit the crimes for which he was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death. Prosecutors argued that in the late 1970s a sin­gle ser­i­al rapist and mur­der­er killed three elder­ly white women and bur­glar­ized and raped a half-dozen oth­ers with a sig­na­ture style that led the media to sala­cious­ly dub him the ​“Stocking Strangler.” But if, as the pros­e­cu­tion insist­ed, a sin­gle per­son com­mit­ted these mur­ders, evi­dence that was nev­er pre­sent­ed to the jury and nev­er con­sid­ered by any fed­er­al court sug­gests that it could­n’t have been Carlton Gary. 

Although Gary was charged with three rapes and mur­ders, the pros­e­cu­tion pre­sent­ed evi­dence of oth­er uncharged crimes under the the­o­ry that they had all been com­mit­ted by the same per­son. The most damn­ing of that evi­dence was the eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny of a sur­viv­ing vic­tim who dra­mat­i­cal­ly iden­ti­fied Gary as the per­son who had raped her and tied a stock­ing around her neck. However, a police state­ment with­held from the defense indi­cat­ed that the wit­ness had ini­tial­ly told inves­ti­ga­tors that she had been asleep and her bed­room dark at the time of the assault and she could not describe, let alone iden­ti­fy, her attacker. 

Post-con­vic­tion DNA test­ing of semen stains on the vic­tim’s bed­cloth­ing exclud­ed Gary. Gary sought to test DNA evi­dence from oth­er crime scenes that was in the pos­ses­sion of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, but as a result of improp­er han­dling, the sam­ples had been con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed and were untestable. 

During the post-con­vic­tion process, Gary learned that police had made a mold of a bite mark from one of the vic­tims and had con­sult­ed with a lead­ing foren­sic odon­tol­o­gist, but had nev­er pre­sent­ed him as a wit­ness. When that expert exam­ined the mold, he con­clud­ed that the mark­ings could not have been made by Gary. Shoeprint evi­dence from the scene was also with­held from Gary’s defense team until 20 years after his tri­al. The size 10 print found at one of the crime scenes could not have been left by Gary, who wears size 13½ shoes. Finally, police claimed that Gary had con­fessed to par­tic­i­pat­ing in the crimes, but not to rap­ing or mur­der­ing the vic­tims. But police nei­ther record­ed nor con­tem­po­ra­ne­ous­ly doc­u­ment­ed his alleged state­ment, which he denied mak­ing, and his lawyers argued that the sup­posed state­ment ​“fits all the rec­og­nized hall­marks of a false con­fes­sion that never happened.” 

In his unsuc­cess­ful clemen­cy peti­tion, Gary’s lawyers argued: ​“We are not talk­ing about ques­tion­able recant­i­ng wit­ness­es who came for­ward long after tri­al, but hard phys­i­cal evi­dence of inno­cence.” The Georgia Board of Pardons denied the petition.

Read: David Rose, The Big Eddy Club: The Stocking Stranglings and Southern Justice (The New Press, 2011 ed.).
Read: David Rose, DNA Shows He’s Not a Killer. Georgia Still Wants to Execute Him Tomorrow, The Daliy Beast, March 14, 2018.
Read: Tim Chitwood, In final appeals, Stocking Strangler attor­neys say Ga. is about to exe­cute inno­cent man, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, March 13, 2018.
Read: Kate Brumback, Citing new evi­dence, con­demned Georgia inmate seeks mer­cy, Associated Press, March 8, 2018.

Domineque Ray

Alabama — Convicted: 1999; Executed: 2019

Alabama exe­cut­ed Domineque Ray on February 7, 2019. Ray’s exe­cu­tion attract­ed nation­al atten­tion when Alabama refused to per­mit his imam to be present in the exe­cu­tion cham­ber in cir­cum­stances in which Christian pris­on­ers were pro­vid­ed reli­gious com­fort by a Christian chap­lain. However, Ray had also argued that he was inno­cent and that the evi­dence against him was false and unreliable. 

Ray was con­vict­ed in July 1999 of the alleged rape, rob­bery, and mur­der of 15-year-old Tiffany Harville in Selma, Alabama. No phys­i­cal evi­dence linked Ray to the mur­der, and the only evi­dence that Harville had been raped and robbed came from a severe­ly men­tal­ly ill man, Marcus Owden, who con­fessed to the crime and avoid­ed the death penal­ty by impli­cat­ing Ray. Owden was also the only per­son who placed Ray in Selma at the time of the murder.

In February 1998, Owden’s lawyers sought the appoint­ment of a clin­i­cal neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist to eval­u­ate him in prepa­ra­tion for poten­tial men­tal health defens­es to present in his own tri­al. The pros­e­cu­tion object­ed, claim­ing Owden ​“has no men­tal impair­ment.” In its open­ing state­ment at Ray’s tri­al, the pros­e­cu­tion told the jury that Owden was ​“fine” and that there was ​“no ques­tion about [his] men­tal abil­i­ty.” In fact, Alabama Department of Corrections records that were nev­er dis­closed to Ray’s lawyers, showed evi­dence of Owden’s men­tal ill­ness as ear­ly as 1994. The records doc­u­ment­ed that Owden had been diag­nosed with seri­ous men­tal ill­ness, psy­chosis, and schiz­o­phre­nia; that he was suf­fer­ing from hal­lu­ci­na­tions and delu­sions, and exhib­it­ed signs of bizarre speech and dis­tor­tions of cog­ni­tion; and that he had a propen­si­ty for lying. 

Ray was con­vict­ed and, after a one-day penal­ty phase, a non-unan­i­mous sen­tenc­ing jury rec­om­mend­ed 11 – 1 that he be sen­tenced to death. In September 1999, the tri­al court imposed the death penalty 

In 2017, Ray’s fed­er­al habeas cor­pus lawyers inter­viewed Owden, who for the first time told them about his schiz­o­phre­nia diag­no­sis and signed a release autho­riz­ing them to obtain his men­tal health records. The records doc­u­ment­ed pros­e­cu­tors’ knowl­edge that Owden had schiz­o­phre­nia and was suf­fer­ing from delu­sions and audi­to­ry hal­lu­ci­na­tions when he accused Ray of the rape and mur­der and tes­ti­fied against him. Ray’s lawyers argued that the prosecution’s delib­er­ate sup­pres­sion of the men­tal health evi­dence, despite being aware of Owden’s men­tal ill­ness, vio­lat­ed Ray’s right to due process and enti­tled him to a new tri­al. As Ray attempt­ed to lit­i­gate that issue, Alabama pros­e­cu­tors suc­cess­ful­ly peti­tioned the state courts to set Ray’s exe­cu­tion date. The Alabama state and fed­er­al courts dis­missed Ray’s due process claim and on the day of his exe­cu­tion, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the mer­its of his pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al misconduct claim.

Read the U.S. Supreme Court peti­tion for writ of cer­tio­rari in Ray v. Alabama.

Larry Swearingen

Texas — Convicted: 2000; Executed: 2019

Texas exe­cut­ed Larry Swearingen on August 21, 2019, despite sig­nif­i­cant flaws with vir­tu­al­ly every piece of foren­sic evi­dence in his case and strong evi­dence that it was phys­i­cal­ly impos­si­ble for him to have com­mit­ted the crime. His con­vic­tion was ground­ed in what his lawyers described as ​“false and mis­lead­ing” junk-sci­ence tes­ti­mo­ny that were lat­er rebutted by numer­ous foren­sic experts. That includ­ed: false expert tes­ti­mo­ny link­ing Swearingen to the mur­der weapon, false tes­ti­mo­ny dis­miss­ing excul­pa­to­ry blood evi­dence, false cell tow­er tes­ti­mo­ny, and false tes­ti­mo­ny con­cern­ing the time of death. ​“They are going to exe­cute some­one that the legit­i­mate foren­sic sci­ence has proven inno­cent,” Swearingen’s appeals lawyer, James Rytting, told the Texas Tribune. ​“And the exe­cu­tion is going through on the basis of oth­er foren­sic sci­ence that is bor­der­line quack­ery — in fact it is quackery.”

Swearingen was sen­tenced to death in July 2000 for the mur­der of Melissa Trotter, who was stran­gled with a pair of panty­hose and whose body was lat­er dumped in a state for­est. A coun­ty med­ical exam­in­er tes­ti­fied at tri­al that Trotter had been dead near­ly a month at the time her body was dis­cov­ered. She lat­er recant­ed that tes­ti­mo­ny, say­ing Trotter died no more than two weeks before. Eight oth­er experts — includ­ing foren­sic pathol­o­gists, foren­sic ento­mol­o­gists, and a foren­sic anthro­pol­o­gist — agreed with that assess­ment. However, giv­en that time of death, it was impos­si­ble for Swearingen to have com­mit­ted the mur­der. Three days after Trotter’s dis­ap­pear­ance, Swearingen was arrest­ed for out­stand­ing traf­fic war­rants and was still in jail three weeks lat­er, when Trotter’s body was discovered. 

The evi­dence link­ing Swearingen to the mur­der also was sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly sus­pect. Trotter was stran­gled with one leg of a pair of panty­hose. A Texas crime lab tech­ni­cian false­ly tes­ti­fied that panty­hose found in his Swearingen’s home were ​“a unique phys­i­cal match” to the lig­a­ture, ​“to the exclu­sion of all oth­er panty­hose.” In clos­ing argu­ment to the jury, the pros­e­cu­tion called this evi­dence ​“the smok­ing gun” of Swearingen’s guilt. However, the tech­ni­cian’s notes of her ini­tial exam­i­na­tion of the evi­dence — which were with­held from the defense at tri­al — indi­cat­ed that she ini­tial­ly had found ​“no phys­i­cal match between lig­a­ture & panty­hose.” The defense pre­sent­ed expert tes­ti­mo­ny panty­hose from a Cal Poly Pomona pro­fes­sor of tex­tile sci­ence that the two hose ​“were cut in the same basic sil­hou­ette, [but] they were not cut from the same piece. These are not a match, and cer­tain­ly not to ​‘the exclu­sion of all oth­er panty­hose.’” Weeks before the exe­cu­tion, the Texas crime lab direc­tor, Brady W. Mills released a let­ter admit­ting that the tech­ni­cian’s tri­al tes­ti­mo­ny was overstated. 

Shortly before the exe­cu­tion, Mills also con­ced­ed that tes­ti­mo­ny by a crime lab serol­o­gy expert dis­miss­ing excul­pa­to­ry blood evi­dence had also been inac­cu­rate. DNA test­ing of blood flakes found under Trotter’s fin­ger­nails pro­duced a DNA pro­file of an uniden­ti­fied male that exclud­ed Swearingen. The serol­o­gist tes­ti­fied with­out any sci­en­tif­ic basis that the blood exclud­ing Swearingen came from con­t­a­m­i­na­tion ​“either at the time the sam­ple was being col­lect­ed” at autop­sy ​“or after the sam­ple was being collected.”

Read: Tom Jackman, Did faulty sci­ence, and bad tes­ti­mo­ny, bring Larry Swearingen to the brink of exe­cu­tion?, The Washington Post, August 17, 2019.
Read: Jolie McCullough, Larry Swearingen is set for exe­cu­tion for a 1998 Texas slay­ing. His lawyer says bad sci­ence got him on death row, The Texas Tribune, August 21, 2019.
Read: Juan A. Lozano and Michael Gracyk, Man set to be exe­cut­ed for killing of Texas col­lege stu­dent, Associated Press, August 21, 2019.
Read: Keri Blakenger, ​‘Lord for­give ​’em’: Larry Swearingen exe­cut­ed despite claims of inno­cence, Houston Chronicle, August 21, 2019.

Walter Barton

Missouri — Convicted: 1993; Executed: 2020

Missouri pros­e­cu­tors tried Walter Barton five times for the bru­tal 1991 stab­bing death of 81-year-old Gladys Kuehler. Twice, Barton’s con­vic­tions and death sen­tences were over­turned because of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct. Two oth­er times, the tri­als end­ed in mistrials. 

Barton was one of three peo­ple, along with a neigh­bor and Kuehler’s grand­daugh­ter, Debbie Selvidge, who dis­cov­ered her body. He con­sis­tent­ly main­tained that he pulled Selvidge away from Kuehler’s body, get­ting droplets of Kuehler’s blood on his clothes. His con­vic­tion rest­ed on junk sci­ence tes­ti­mo­ny that small blood stains on his clothes had been ​“impact stains” from ​“high veloc­i­ty” blood spat­ter, which the pros­e­cu­tion argued occurred while Barton was pur­port­ed­ly stab­bing Kuehler. However, a 2015 analy­sis by crime scene ana­lyst Lawrence Renner con­clud­ed that the blood­stains on Barton’s clothes were actu­al­ly ​“trans­fer stains,” like­ly caused by con­tact with oth­er blood­stains. Kuehler had been stabbed 50 times, and Renner said that the per­pe­tra­tor of such a griz­zly mur­der would have been cov­ered in the victim’s blood. Prior to his exe­cu­tion, three jurors who had vot­ed to con­vict Barton signed affi­davits say­ing that the new analy­sis of evi­dence from the case would have affect­ed their guilt-stage deliberations.

In addi­tion to the blood-spat­ter tes­ti­mo­ny, pros­e­cu­tors pre­sent­ed tes­ti­mo­ny from a jail­house infor­mant, Katherine Allen, who had been con­vict­ed 29 times for fraud, forgery, and relat­ed offens­es. Allen claimed that Barton had con­fessed to her and then threat­ened to kill her ​“like he killed that old lady” if she dis­closed his alleged con­fes­sion. Allen lied to the jury that she had only six con­vic­tions and that she had received no ben­e­fits for impli­cat­ing Barton. Prosecutors with­held from the defense the fact that they had dis­missed an addi­tion­al case against Allen in exchange for her tes­ti­mo­ny in Barton’s fifth trial.

Read: Luke Nozicka, Days before Missouri man’s exe­cu­tion, jurors see new evi­dence that rais­es doubts, Kansas City Star, May 12, 2020.
Read: Liliana Segura and Jordan Chronic, Reopening Missouri amid the pan­dem­ic means exe­cut­ing a pos­si­bly inno­cent man, The Intercept, May 14, 202.
Read: Jim Salter, Missouri mov­ing ahead with exe­cu­tion plans, Associated Press, May 14, 2020.

Nathaniel Woods

Alabama — Convicted: 2005; Executed: 2020

Nathaniel Woods was sen­tenced to death after a non-unan­i­mous jury sen­tenc­ing rec­om­men­da­tion in August 2005 for the killings of three Alabama police offi­cers. His case fea­tured sev­er­al hall­marks of wrong­ful con­vic­tion: offi­cial mis­con­duct, coerced infor­mant tes­ti­mo­ny, and racial discrimination.

Prosecutors acknowl­edged that Woods’ co-defen­dant, Kerry Spencer, shot the offi­cers in an inci­dent in a drug house. Spencer, who received a life sen­tence in his tri­al, has con­sis­tent­ly main­tained that he shot the offi­cers in self-defense, after they had beat­en Woods dur­ing a shake­down and then point­ed a gun at Spencer. Knowing he was not the shoot­er, pros­e­cu­tors offered Woods a plea deal for 20 – 25 years, but Woods’ lawyer advised him not to take it, mis­in­form­ing him that he could not be con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal mur­der as an accomplice.

After Woods, who is Black, turned down the plea deal, pros­e­cu­tors for the first time claimed that he had been the mas­ter­mind of a plan to kill the three white offi­cers because he sup­pos­ed­ly hat­ed police. In sup­port of that new the­o­ry, they pre­sent­ed tes­ti­mo­ny from Woods’ girl­friend that he pur­port­ed­ly had made com­ments about his hatred of police. But even before the tri­al, she recant­ed that state­ment, say­ing police had threat­ened to charge her with parole vio­la­tions if she did not tes­ti­fy. At tri­al, the court refused to allow the defense to present evi­dence of police misconduct.

Spencer called Woods ​“100 per­cent inno­cent.” ​“Nate ain’t done noth­ing,” he said. ​“All he did that day was get beat up and he ran.”

Read: Lauren Gill, Alabama pre­pares to exe­cute a man whose case is haunt­ed by claims of police mis­con­duct, The Appeal/AL.com, February 24, 2020.

Read: Anne Branigin, Alabama Prepares to Execute Man Found Responsible for Murdering 3 Police Officers — Without Pulling a Single Trigger, The Root, February 25, 2020.

Others sug­gest that more than 40 peo­ple have been exe­cut­ed in the United States despite seri­ous doubts as to their guilt. See EXECUTED BUT INNOCENT?, Save​-Innocents​.com.

Marcellus Williams 

Missouri — Convicted: 2001; Executed: 2024 

Missouri exe­cut­ed Marcellus Williams on September 24, 2024, despite seri­ous doubt regard­ing his involve­ment in the mur­der of Felicia Gayle in 1998. His inno­cence claims received the sup­port of more than one mil­lion peti­tion-sign­ers, the sit­ting St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney, and numer­ous polit­i­cal offi­cials and advocacy organizations. 

St. Louis Police sus­pect­ed that Ms. Gayle’s mur­der was a rob­bery gone wrong, and the crime scene details matched those of a crime that occurred just a few weeks ear­li­er. No arrests were made until after Ms. Gayle’s fam­i­ly offered a $10,000 reward for infor­ma­tion lead­ing to the killer’s arrest. A jail­house infor­mant, Henry Cole, told police that Marcellus Williams, a for­mer cell­mate of his, con­fessed to killing Ms. Gayle. Cops lat­er secured a sec­ond infor­mant, Mr. Williams’ for­mer girl­friend, Laura Asaro, who told police that he had killed Ms. Gayle. Both Mr. Cole and Ms. Asaro were fac­ing unre­lat­ed charges and stood to ben­e­fit from tes­ti­fy­ing for the state. Despite chang­ing tes­ti­mo­ny from each infor­mant, Mr. Williams was charged, con­vict­ed, and sen­tenced to death for the mur­der of Felicia Gayle. 

No phys­i­cal evi­dence dis­cov­ered at the crime scene could be con­nect­ed to Mr. Williams, but Ms. Asaro claimed that he had scratch­es on his face the day fol­low­ing the mur­der. Scientific test­ing revealed no for­eign DNA under Ms. Gayle’s fin­ger­nails. Mr. Cole told the jury that Mr. Williams stole cloth­ing from the victim’s house to cov­er bloody stains, yet no clothes were deter­mined to be miss­ing from Ms. Gayle’s home. Before Mr. Williams’ tri­al, the cir­cuit court judge refused to allow DNA test­ing of some of the evi­dence col­lect­ed from the crime scene. In 2015, Mr. Williams was giv­en per­mis­sion for DNA test­ing of the mur­der weapon, which revealed a male DNA pro­file incon­sis­tent with that of Mr. Williams. 

With this new evi­dence, Mr. Williams appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court, but they dis­missed the new evi­dence and set an August 2017 exe­cu­tion date. The same day Mr. Williams was sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed, he received a stay of exe­cu­tion from then-Missouri Governor Eric Greitens, who cre­at­ed a Board of Inquiry to review the DNA evi­dence. A five-mem­ber board con­sist­ing of retired judges was impan­eled to ​“assess the cred­i­bil­i­ty and weight of all evi­dence” in Mr. Williams’ case. In the order from Gov. Greitens, he indi­cat­ed that the board must make a final report and rec­om­men­da­tion to the gov­er­nor ​“as to whether or not [Mr.] Williams should be exe­cut­ed, or his sen­tence of death commuted.” 

In June 2023, before the board of inquiry had issued a report, Governor Mike Parson issued an exec­u­tive order rescind­ing Gov. Greitens’ order to estab­lish the board. In January 2024, state Attorney General Andrew Bailey asked the Missouri Supreme Court to set an exe­cu­tion date for Mr. Williams. Days lat­er, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell filed a motion in the St. Louis County Circuit Court, ask­ing the Court to vacate Mr. Williams’ death sen­tence. Following a 2021 Missouri law that grants pros­e­cu­tors the author­i­ty to inter­vene in cas­es when there is ​“infor­ma­tion that the con­vict­ed per­son may be inno­cent,” PA Bell filed his motion to vacate Mr. Williams’ sen­tence and con­vic­tion. In his motion, PA Bell not­ed that ​“this nev­er-before-con­sid­ered evi­dence, when paired with the rel­a­tive pauci­ty of oth­er cred­i­ble evi­dence sup­port­ing guilt, as well as addi­tion­al con­sid­er­a­tions of inef­fec­tive assis­tance of coun­sel and racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in jury selec­tion, casts inex­orable doubt on Mr. Williams’ con­vic­tion and sentence.” 

On June 4, 2024, the Missouri Supreme Court set a September 24, 2024, exe­cu­tion date for Mr. Williams, despite PA Bell’s pend­ing motion to vacate his sen­tence and con­vic­tion. A month lat­er, AG Bailey asked the state supreme court to block the request­ed evi­den­tiary hear­ing asso­ci­at­ed with PA Bell’s motion, which the St. Louis County Circuit Court sched­uled for August 21, 2024. Days lat­er, the Missouri Supreme Court blocked the AG’s efforts, allow­ing the evi­den­tiary hear­ing to pro­ceed. On August 21, 2024, Mr. Williams agreed to enter an Alford plea in exchange for a sen­tence of life with­out parole. This agree­ment would have ensured that Mr. Williams, who con­sis­tent­ly main­tained his inno­cence, would not be exe­cut­ed. Hours after Judge Bruce F. Hilton accept­ed the plea agree­ment, AG Bailey asked the state supreme court to block the deal, claim­ing that Judge Hilton did not have the author­i­ty to resen­tence Mr. Williams. In response, the Missouri Supreme Court ordered the low­er court to set aside the plea agree­ment and move for­ward with the sched­uled evi­den­tiary hear­ing, which was resched­uled for August 28, 2024. 

Mr. Williams’ plea agree­ment was reached as both par­ties were sched­uled to begin an evi­den­tiary hear­ing on PA Bell’s motion to vacate Mr. Williams’ death sen­tence. Prosecutors unex­pect­ed­ly announced that the mur­der weapon con­tained the DNA of mem­bers of the tri­al pros­e­cu­tion team. Consistent with his asser­tion of inno­cence, the mur­der weapon does not show any DNA from Mr. Williams, but the new find­ing indi­cat­ed that the crime scene evi­dence was mis­han­dled by pros­e­cu­tors. At the August 28, 2024, evi­den­tiary hear­ing, PA Bell’s office con­ced­ed that the pri­or admin­is­tra­tion com­mit­ted con­sti­tu­tion­al errors con­tribut­ing to Mr. Williams’ unre­li­able con­vic­tion, includ­ing the mis­han­dling of the mur­der weapon, destruc­tion of fin­ger­prints, and the improp­er exclu­sion of Black jurors because of their race. 

On September 12, 2024, Judge Hilton denied PA Bell’s motion to vacate Mr. Williams’ con­vic­tion and death sen­tence, writ­ing that ​“there is no basis for a court to find that [Mr.] Williams is inno­cent, and no court has made such a find­ing.” On September 24, 2024, the United States Supreme Court denied an emer­gency motion to stay Mr. Williams exe­cu­tion, and Gov. Parson refused to inter­vene, deny­ing clemen­cy for Mr. Williams and allow­ing his exe­cu­tion to proceed.