An arti­cle in the lat­est edi­tion of The Angolite, a mag­a­zine pub­lished by pris­on­ers at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, tells the sto­ries of the ten men who have been exon­er­at­ed from death row in that state. The piece promi­nent­ly fea­tures Glenn Ford, the state’s most recent inmate to be freed. Ford spent 30 years on death row before being released in 2014. Among the oth­er cas­es described is that of John Thompson, who was freed after it was revealed that pros­e­cu­tors inten­tion­al­ly with­held evi­dence from his attor­neys. A jury award­ed Thompson $14 mil­lion in dam­ages, but the U.S. Supreme Court over­turned the deci­sion, say­ing the pros­e­cu­tor’s office could not be held account­able for not train­ing their staff based on this sin­gle vio­la­tion of the law. After describ­ing all ten cas­es in which the wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed men spent a total of 120 years on death row, the arti­cle con­cludes, ​“These are symp­toms of a crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem in dire need of repair.…These are dan­gers of the ulti­mate pun­ish­ment that can nev­er be tak­en back, even if down the road inno­cence is proven.” 

Louisiana ranks fourth among states in the num­ber of pris­on­ers exon­er­at­ed and freed from death row since 1973, behind Florida, Illinois, and Texas.

(J. Corley, ​“10 Condemned,” The Angolite, Vol. 39, No. 2, March/​April 2014; DPIC post­ed Sept. 26, 2014). See Innocence and Articles. For a sub­scrip­tion to The Angolite, write to: Louisiana State Penitentiary, Angola, LA 70712.

Citation Guide