The Death Penalty and Innocence
Nationally, 124 people have been exonerated in the United States. Exoneration means that a court of law has overturned their guilty plea, not on a technicality, but on the belief that they are innocent.
Three people have been exonerated in Missouri.
Leading factors for exoneration are: mistaken identity, police misconduct, prosecutorial misconduct and false witness testimony.
A University of Michigan study found death row inmates represent ¼ of all prison inmates, but 22% of all exonerations.
A 1993 U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee staff report found the following concerning innocence and the death penalty:
It is an inescapable fact of our criminal justice system that innocent people are too often convicted of crimes. . . .
Americans are justifiably concerned about the possibility that an innocent person may be executed. Capital punishment in the United States today provides no reliable safeguards against this danger. Errors can and have been made repeatedly in the trial of death penalty cases because of poor representation, racial prejudice, prosecutorial misconduct, or simply the presentation of erroneous evidence. Once convicted, a death row inmate faces serious obstacles in convincing any tribunal that he is innocent. . . .
Judging by past experience, a substantial number of death row inmates are indeed innocent and there is a high risk that some of them will be executed. The danger is inherent in the punishment itself and the fallibility of human nature.
SOURCE: House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, Innocence and the Death Penalty: Assessing the Danger of Mistaken Executions, staff report, 103rd Cong., 1st sess., 1993.
For more information on Innocence and the Death Penalty (deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=412&scid=6)