Innocently Executed Essay, Research Paper

Innicent men have been executed in the United States. According to a report published by the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, or the NCADP, 23 innocent men have been executed in the U.S. this century. About 4.5 people are wrongly convicted of capital crimes each year.

Willie Darden was executed in Florida for a crime that he couldn’t have committed. The key witnesses in his case were not allowed to testify. The person who did testify against Darden admitted that, in her opinion, all blacks looked alike. Furthermore, Darden was the only black person in the police line-up. Darden’s conviction was based on a gun that could not be traced to him in any way. Supreme Court Justice Blackmun said, “If ever a man received an unfair trial, Darden did.”

On July 23, 1997, Joseph O’Dell III was executed in Virginia despite existing DNA evidence that could have proven his innocence. The courts refused to consider this new evidence because, according to Virginia law, evidence found after 21 days is inadmissible in proving the innocence of a convicted person. In fact, the evidence was so strong in revealing the innocence of O’Dell that his investigators and supporters urged the public, and the media to get involved in what three U.S. Supreme Court Justices said was a “gross miscarriage of justice” in the execution of an innocent man.

This issue was best described in 1994 when Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. said, “Perhaps the bleakest fact of all is that the death penalty is imposed not only in a freakish and discriminatory manner, but also in some cases upon defendants who are actually innocent.”