From 1973 to 2004, more than 35 percent of death row inmates were spared from capital punishment, but remained incarcerated, the study said. Our justice system should strive to reduce the number of innocent victims as much as possible. People who were sentenced to death after being convicted of crimes they didn’t commit share moving testimonials about their experiences on death row … The groundbreaking research reported that although 138 death row inmates have been exonerated and released after proving innocence, many other innocent capital defendants are missed if they are removed from death row or have their sentences reduced to life in prison after appeals. … The letter was delivered to Biden urging him to abolish the death penalty. While there are some crimes that deserve a punishment worse than life in prison, the risk of killing the wrong man is too great. The moral disasters of death row. This helps, but some wrongful convictions slip through the cracks. In 2007, a new trial was ordered due to withheld evidence, “lost, misplaced or destroyed” documents, the use of weak, circumstantial evidence, false testimony by the lead investigator, and ineffective assistance of defense counsel during Chapman's original trial. The appeals process and groups like The Innocence Project help to overturn some wrongful convictions. Many more innocent people are killed by murderers who have been released from prisons. The death penalty is not about vengeance, it is about justice. Since 1973, 151 people have been released from death rows throughout the country due to evidence of their wrongful convictions. On Thursday, the Death Penalty Information Center added 11 previously unidentified cases to their list of people who have been sentenced to death and later found innocent, bringing the number of death row exonerations in the United States up to 185 since 1973. If inmates no longer facing execution received the same kind of defense as those on death row, the authors concluded that … “There Are Innocent People on Death Row” — Citing Wrongful Convictions, California Governor Halts Executions After $5 billion spent on a failed system, Gov. Usually once a person has been executed, the case is no longer investigated. [3] In 43 of these cases, the defendant was subsequently acquitted, pardoned, or charges were dropped. At least 48 people have been released from prison after serving time on death row since 1930 with significant evidence of their innocence. There’s a reason so many states have given up on the death penalty. Too many supposedly non-parolable "life" sentences have their sentences reduced or commuted. Innocent people have been sentenced to death and executed. He spent 15 years on death row, and always maintained his innocence. Between 1973 and 2016, 156 people who had been sentenced to death were subsequently determined to be innocent. Death Penalty and Innocence May 18, 2017 . Innocent, but executed? According to the Innocence Project, the top four reasons innocent people are on death row are: (1) eyewitness misidentification, (2) unvalidated/improper forensics or junk science, (3) false confessions, and (4) informants/snitches. In 2003 alone, 10 wrongfully convicted defendants were released from death row. If innocent people can be convicted, sentenced to death, and executed, the criminal justice system cannot be trusted to reliably separate the innocent from the guilty. As long as there is a death penalty, innocent people will die.