Entries tagged with “Posthumous Exonerations”
Executions
Jan 22, 2026
“I Have Been Tricked Out of My Life”: Dallas Man Exonerated 70 Years After Execution
September 30, 1953 was an eventful night for 19-year-old Tommy Lee Walker. After catching a ride home from work at 6 p.m. — he didn’t have a car — he spent a few hours with friends in Exall Park near his home in Dallas. He then visited his girlfriend Mary Louise Smith, who was nine months pregnant. It seemed like the baby would come any minute, and sure enough, Mary Louise went into labor that night. Their son Ted was born in the early hours of October 1. Yet despite the many witnesses who saw Mr.
Issues
Women
,Aug 01, 2022
Massachusetts Formally Exonerates Last ‘Witch’ Wrongfully Condemned During Salem Hysteria. Will Connecticut Follow Suit?
As Massachusetts formally exonerated the last person condemned for witchcraft in the colony, efforts are under way to clear the names of the 46 people wrongfully charged with witchcraft in neighboring Connecticut during the 17th century Puritan witch hunts. 329 years after she was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death, the Massachusetts state senate amended the state’s budget to include a provision to exonerate Elizabeth Johnson Jr., the last of the people convicted during the Salem…
Issues
Jun 21, 2022
Pennsylvania Teen Exonerated 91 Years After Sham Trial and Execution on Racially Motivated Charges that He Had Murdered a White Woman
An African-American teenager who was convicted and sentenced to death in Pennsylvania on false charges that he had murdered a white woman has been exonerated, 91 years after he was executed. On June 13, 2022, Delaware County Court of Common Pleas Judge Kevin Kelly granted a motion filed jointly by lawyers for Alexander McClay Williams and the Delaware County District Attorney’s office to posthumously overturn Williams’ conviction and death sentence. (Williams is pictured with then-District…
Issues
Mar 25, 2019
Florida Man Who Took Plea to Avoid Death Penalty Posthumously Exonerated of 1983 Rape-Murder
Broward County, Florida prosecutors moved to posthumously exonerate Ronald Stewart (pictured) of a rape and murder he did not commit. Stewart pled no contest to the 1983 rape and murder of Regina Harrison after he was threatened with the death penalty. The actual killer, whose guilt has since been confirmed by DNA testing, went on to murder at least two more women after Harrison. On March 21, 2019, prosecutors released a statement announcing that they were seeking to overturn Stewart’s…
Issues
Jun 19, 2015
Pardon Sought for Black Teen Executed by Pennsylvania 84 Years Ago
84 years after Pennsylvania executed a black 16-year-old for the 1931 murder of his white school matron, the descendants of the boy’s trial lawyers are trying to exonerate him. Samuel Lemon, the great-grandson of Alexander McClay Williams’ defense attorney, William Ridley (pictured), has researched the case and concluded that Williams was innocent of murdering Vida Robare. He is trying to obtain a posthumous pardon for Williams. Robare had been granted a divorce from her ex-husband — whom…
Issues
Mar 12, 2014
Efforts Underway to Exonerate 14-Year-Old Executed in South Carolina in 1944
Attorneys representing the family of George Stinney, Jr., recently filed a request for a posthumous exoneration of Mr. Stinney, the youngest person executed in the U.S. in the 20th century. Stinney, an African-American 14-year-old, was executed in 1944 for the murder of two young white girls less than three months after a trial that was filled with errors. Although Clarendon County, South Carolina, where the trial took place, had a population that was 72% black, only whites served on Stinney’s…
Issues
Sep 23, 2010
INNOCENCE: DNA Test Clears Three Wrongfully Convicted Inmates Who Might Have Been Executed
Two men who were serving life sentences were exonerated on September 16 from a Mississippi prison after 30 years. Phillip Bivens and Bobby Ray Dixon were accused of the 1979 rape and murder of Eva Gail Patterson. Larry Ruffin, a co-defendant who died in prison eight years ago, will be posthumously exonerated. Ruffin was the first defendant to be arrested for the crime. Dixon and Bivens were later charged as co-conspirators, even though Patterson’s 4‑year-old son, who witnessed the crime…