Two Death Row Exonerees Passed Away in January 2024

Two of the 196 peo­ple who have been exon­er­at­ed from death row in the U.S. died in a two-week span in January 2024. Their cas­es high­light the human costs of wrong­ful con­vic­tions and the chal­lenges faced by exonerees. Clifford Williams, Jr. (pic­tured, left), who was wrong­ful­ly incar­cer­at­ed for 42 years in Florida, died January 11, less than five years after he was freed. Michael Graham, Jr. (pic­tured, below), who spent 14 years on death row in Louisiana before being exon­er­at­ed in 2000, died January 24.

Mr. Williams was con­vict­ed along with his nephew, Nathan Myers, in 1976. A judge over­rode the jury’s sen­tenc­ing rec­om­men­da­tion for life and sen­tenced Mr. Williams to death. Mr. Myers, who was 18 at the time, received a life sen­tence. A 2018 inves­ti­ga­tion by the state’s first Conviction Integrity Unit found that no phys­i­cal evi­dence linked the men to the crime, and that anoth­er man had con­fessed to sev­er­al peo­ple that he com­mit­ted the crime. Both Mr. Williams and Mr. Myers were exon­er­at­ed in 2019. At the time of his exon­er­a­tion, Mr. Williams told Florida Times-Union reporter Andrew Pantazi, ​“My moth­er died while I was on death row. I just want­ed to get out and see my kids. There wasn’t nobody but them.” Mr. Williams’ daugh­ter, Tracy Magwood, said at her father’s funer­al, ​“My dad and I were always like two peas in a pod. … I always want­ed to make sure what­ev­er could be done was done for him.” But she not­ed that he missed out on big moments because of his impris­on­ment. ​“He didn’t get to walk me down the aisle. He wasn’t there when his grand­chil­dren were born.”

Mr. Graham and his co-defen­dant, Albert Burrell, were sen­tenced to death in 1987 after pros­e­cu­tors with­held evi­dence from the defense and pre­sent­ed unre­li­able wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny that was lat­er recant­ed. The Louisiana Attorney General’s Office said charges against them should be dis­missed because of a ​“total lack of cred­i­ble evi­dence.” Despite the offi­cial mis­con­duct that con­tributed to their wrong­ful con­vic­tions, the two men were nev­er com­pen­sat­ed for the time they spent on death row. According to Witness to Innocence, Mr. Graham ​“was giv­en a $10 check for trans­porta­tion (bus fare cost $127 — his lawyer paid for it) and a state-issued den­im jack­et sev­er­al sizes too large.” He lat­er devel­oped Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder (COPD) and could not work. In his final years, he relied on assis­tance from var­i­ous anti-death penal­ty groups and had to set up a GoFundMe cam­paign to cov­er basic expenses.