California

In 1967, Governor Ronald Reagan com­mut­ed Calvin Thomas’ sen­tence from death to life impris­on­ment after it was dis­cov­ered that Mr. Thomas suf­fered from organ­ic brain dam­age. Mr. Thomas had been con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing a three-year-old boy. Mr. Thomas’s brain dam­age was only dis­cov­ered after he was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death. 

Thomas Thompson was exe­cut­ed in 1998 for the 1981 rape and mur­der of Ginger Fleischli despite sub­stan­tial evi­dence that he was inno­cent and that some­one else had com­mit­ted the mur­der. The victim’s ex-boyfriend, David Leitch, was con­vict­ed of sec­ond-degree mur­der in con­nec­tion to the crime. Evidence found near the vic­tim and in the trunk of a car linked the crime to Mr. Leitch, who had a his­to­ry of vio­lence and had threat­ened the vic­tim only two weeks before her death. In sep­a­rate tri­als for each man, the pros­e­cu­tor gave con­flict­ing ver­sions of events, claim­ing Mr. Thompson was alone with the vic­tim in his tri­al, and that Mr. Leitch and Mr. Thompson were both present dur­ing Mr. Leitch’s tri­al. Mr. Thompson’s death sen­tence was over­turned twice on appeals, once only two days before his ini­tial exe­cu­tion date in August 1997, but the rever­sals were lat­er over­turned by the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Thompson was exe­cut­ed on July 14, 1998. In 2015, 9^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote that Mr. Thompson was ​“like­ly inno­cent” of the rape and mur­der for which he was sen­tenced to death. 

Manuel Babbitt was a Vietnam War Veteran who was exe­cut­ed in 1999 for the mur­der of an elder­ly Sacramento woman. Mr. Babbitt served two com­bat tours in Vietnam and, while on death row, received the Purple Heart for wounds he received dur­ing the Battle of Khe Sanh. After the war, Mr. Babbitt was diag­nosed with post-trau­­mat­ic stress dis­or­der (PTSD) and para­noid schiz­o­phre­nia. He soon became home­less. In 1980, he broke into the home of 78-year-old Leah Schendel, assault­ed her and stole some food as well as some of her belong­ings. Ms. Schendel died of a heart attack. Mr. Babbit laid a mat­tress over her and toe tagged her, say­ing lat­er that he was expe­ri­enc­ing a Vietnam War flash­back at that moment. During the sen­tenc­ing phase of the tri­al, Mr. Babbitt’s attor­ney did not intro­duce any evi­dence of his client’s men­tal ill­ness to the jury, prompt­ing him to lat­er say that he ​“failed com­plete­ly” dur­ing this cru­cial phase of the tri­al. Before his exe­cu­tion, Mr. Babbitt refused his last meal and asked for the allot­ted mon­ey to be donat­ed to a home­less Vietnam Veteran. Prison offi­cials refused his request. 

Patrick ​‘Hooty’ Croy was exon­er­at­ed on March 20, 2005, after spend­ing 19 years in prison, sev­en of them on death row. He was con­vict­ed of the 1978 killing of City of Yreka police offi­cer Jesse ​‘Bo’ Hittson dur­ing a shootout between police and five peo­ple, includ­ing Mr. Croy, who were sus­pect­ed of rob­bing a near­by liquor store. Mr. Croy was con­vict­ed in 1979 and sen­tenced to death. In 1985, the California Supreme Court over­turned Mr. Croy’s con­vic­tions for mur­der, rob­bery, and attempt­ed mur­der. During his retri­al in 1990, he tes­ti­fied that he had act­ed in self-defense after Officer Hittson shot him twice in the back — Mr. Croy believed he would not have the option to sur­ren­der because of prej­u­dice against Native Americans. He was acquit­ted of all cap­i­tal charges. In 2005, a fed­er­al dis­trict court judge vacat­ed the remain­ing charges. Siskiyou County pros­e­cu­tors did not appeal that deci­sion and elect­ed not to retry him, com­plet­ing Mr. Croy’s exoneration. 

In the ear­ly 1970s, Stanley Williams co-found­ed the Crips, a street gang from Los Angeles. Mr. Williams was sen­tenced to death in 1981 for the mur­ders of four peo­ple dur­ing a rob­bery spree in 1979. While he admit­ted he had com­mit­ted many bru­tal acts while he was involved in the Crips, Mr. Williams always main­tained his inno­cence regard­ing the mur­ders for which he was sen­tenced to death. In 1996, Mr. Williams co-authored ​“Gangs and Wanting to Belong,” the first in a series of anti-gang children’s books. He lat­er went on to write ​“Life in Prison” and ​“Blue Rage, Black Redemption.” For his anti-gang youth out­reach, Mr. Williams was nom­i­nat­ed for the Nobel Peace Prize a total of six times. Many notable lead­ers, includ­ing Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Rigoberta Menchu, peti­tioned then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to spare Mr. William’s life. He was exe­cut­ed by lethal injec­tion at San Quentin State Prison on December 13, 2005.

Vicente Benavides, was exon­er­at­ed on April 19, 2018, after being wrong­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1993 on charges that he had raped, sodom­ized, and mur­dered his girlfriend’s 21-month-old daugh­ter, Consuelo Verdugo. The for­mal dis­missal of all charges against Mr. Benavides, a Mexican nation­al, came two days after Kern County District Attorney Lisa Green said her office would not be seek­ing a retri­al. The California Supreme Court grant­ed the for­mer farm­work­er a new tri­al in March 2018, call­ing his con­vic­tions for sex­u­al­ly assault­ing and mur­der­ing Consuelo a prod­uct of ​“exten­sive,” ​“per­va­sive,” ​“impact­ful,” and ​“false” foren­sic tes­ti­mo­ny. Consuelo, the court said, had nev­er been sex­u­al­ly assault­ed and may actu­al­ly have died from being hit by a car. During oral argu­ment, Associate California Supreme Court Justice Carol Corrigan — a for­mer pros­e­cu­tor — described the foren­sic tes­ti­mo­ny as ​“among the most hair-rais­ing false evi­dence that I’ve encoun­tered in all the time that I’ve been look­ing at criminal cases.” 

In 2024, Larry Roberts became the 200^th per­son exon­er­at­ed from U.S. death row. He was sen­tenced to death in 1983 for the mur­ders of fel­low prison­er Charles Gardner and prison offi­cer Albert Patch at the California Medical Facility, based large­ly on the eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny of fel­low pris­on­ers. Mr. Roberts’ co-defen­­dant Larry Menefield, who was like­wise found guilty of the mur­ders in a joint tri­al, was sen­tenced to life with­out parole. In 1992, the California Supreme Court reversed Mr. Roberts’ con­vic­tion for the mur­der of Mr. Patch, as well as the mul­ti­­ple-mur­der spe­­cial-cir­cum­s­tance find­ings. Years lat­er, one of the state’s eye­wit­ness­es admit­ted to per­jury, explain­ing that he was threat­ened by inves­ti­ga­tors at the time of the inci­dent. Infor­ma­tion regard­ing the com­pe­ten­cy of anoth­er eye­wit­ness, who had been declared insane by three court-appoint­ed psy­chi­a­trists, was also dis­cov­ered to have been with­held from the defense. After a U.S. District Court ordered a new tri­al for Mr. Roberts, the California Attorney General said that a ​“retri­al is not rea­son­ably fea­si­ble” due to a lack of avail­able wit­ness­es, many of whom were deceased or elder­ly. On June 29, 2024, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California vacat­ed his con­vic­tion and death sentence.