Mississippi Death Row Inmate Denied DNA Testing on Eve of Execution
The Willie Manning case from Mississippi has garnered much attention recently. Manning, on death row, is scheduled to be executed on Tuesday, May 7th. His case contains many facts that raise the possibility of a wrongful conviction. However, the state has steadfastly refused to conduct DNA and fingerprinting tests on the evidence. Experts told the...
DE Man Facing Death Penalty Has Charges Dropped After Witness Recants
A Wilmington, Delaware man has gone from facing the death penalty to being freed. In a story reported by the Delaware News Journal, Medford Holmes was charged with shooting a man in a wheelchair, Antonio Smith, to death in 2011. Holmes’ September 2012 trial ended in a hung jury. In a stunning turn of events,...
Innocence and the Death Penalty – the Debra Milke Case
This was a week of high visibility for the issue of innocence and the death penalty. In Arizona, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the conviction of a woman on death row and she may be released soon. In Arizona, 49 year old Debra Milke has spent 22 years on death row after being...
Death Penalty Infographic
The death penalty in the state of California continues to be a major focus, due in part to the burden it places on tax payers. Our goal with this infographic was to examine the facts, and the facts alone. Even though Proposition 34 did not pass in the most recent election, this issue will continue...
TX Court Asked to Exonerate Death Row Inmate in SBS Case
This week, Manuel Velez will have an evidentiary hearing to determine whether his conviction for murder should be overturned. In 2008, Velez was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2005 murder of his girlfriend’s 11-month old child based on Shaken Baby Syndrome. But as with many Shaken Baby Syndrome cases, the facts are not always...
Man on Death Row Claims Innocence in Notorious New Orleans Murder Case
In fall 1995, a jury found 18 year old Rogers Lacaze, now 36, guilty of participating in the first-degree murders of New Orleans cop Ronald Williams and siblings Cuong Vu and Ha Vu, who were all killed with a 9mm handgun at Kim Anh restaurant in eastern New Orleans on March 4, 1995. At trial, Lacaze...
Innocent Man Near Execution Despite Unreliable Forensic Evidence
The Huffington Post reports on the case of Jeffrey Harvard, who has been on Mississippi’s death row since 2002. He was convicted of murdering Chloe Britt, the six-month-old daughter of his girlfriend at the time. Havard claims he was giving the child a bath when, as he was lifting her from the tub, she slipped from...
Defeat of CA’s Prop. 34 Means Risk of Executing the Innocent Remains
With Californians voting last Tuesday to keep the state’s death penalty in place by opposing Proposition 34 (the Savings, Accountability, and Full Enforcement for California Act), innocent people on death row again face executions despite the potential of developing evidence of their innocence. Proposition 34, which would have repealed the death penalty retroactively and changed...
Death Row Exoneree Supports Pardon for Cameron Todd Willingham
The family of Cameron Todd Willingham is petitioning the state to issue a posthumous pardon which will clear Willingham’s name. Last week, Willingham’s stepmother and two cousins were in Austin, Texas at the state capital to present the petition. The facts of Willingham’s case are fairly simple. In 1992, Willingham was convicted of intentionally setting...
TN Death Row Inmate Michael Dale Rimmer Released – Prosecutorial Misconduct or Ineffective Counsel?
Last Friday, Tennessee Criminal Court Judge James Beasley Jr. overturned the 1998 conviction of death row inmate Michael Dale Rimmer. Rimmer had spent 14 years on death row for killing his ex-girlfriend, Ricci Lynn Ellsworth, whose body was never found. Beasley wrote a massive 212-page order that Rimmer’s trial lawyers repeatedly failed to unearth that evidence,...