Entries tagged with “Kwame Ajamu”
Issues
Jun 30, 2021
NEWS BRIEF: Ohio Death Row Exoneree Wiley Bridgeman Dies
Wiley Bridgeman (pictured, left), who spent 39 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, died June 27, 2021, after a long illness. Bridgeman was 66. In 1975, Bridgeman was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death alongside his brother, Kwame Ajamu (pictured, right), and their friend, Ricky Jackson. Bridgeman once came within three weeks of execution before Ohio’s death-penalty law was declared unconstitutional in 1978. The three men were exonerated in 2014, when a witness who had…
Issues
Feb 19, 2021
National Geographic Publishes Feature Story on Innocence and the Death Penalty
For the first time in its history, National Geographic magazine has tackled the subject of capital punishment. Sentenced to death, but innocent, a feature story in the March 2021 issue of the magazine, chronicles the stories of fifteen death-row exonerees and illuminates the pervasive issue of innocence and the death penalty in the United States. The article, released on the same day as the Death Penalty Information Center’s new report The Innocence Epidemic, uses DPIC data and compelling…
Issues
Jan 06, 2021
Witness to Innocence Releases #ImLivingProof Video Series
Witness to Innocence, the national organization of U.S. death-row exonerees, has released a series of short videos under the tag “#ImLivingProof,” featuring the stories of men and women who had been wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death. The series, produced by filmmaker Martin Schoeller with funding from the Art for Justice Fund, attempts to personalize the dangers of the death penalty by showing the public living proof that innocent people are sentenced to death. Eight of the videos…
Issues
May 12, 2020
Ohio Death Row Exonerees Reach $18 Million Settlement with City of Cleveland
The city of Cleveland will pay a record $18 million dollars to settle a civil rights lawsuit by three former death-row prisoners who, as a result of police misconduct, spent more than a combined 80 years imprisoned for a murder they did not commit. Kwame Ajamu (pictured, left), his brother Wiley Bridgeman (pictured, center), and Rickey Jackson (pictured, right) were convicted in 1975 of the robbery and murder of Harold Franks based on the coerced false testimony of a 12-year-old boy, Eddie…