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Innocence and the Death Penalty

case study capital punishment innocent

Melissa Lucio poses for a portrait behind glass at the Mountain View Unit in Gatesville, Texas on March 21, 2022. (Image: Ilana Panich-Linsman for the Innocence Project)

In the last 30 years, exoneration cases have exposed the very real shortcomings of the American legal system. 

The Innocence Project has represented innocent people who were wrongly convicted of murder and condemned to death in cases that were compromised by police and prosecutorial misconduct, ineffective assistance of counsel, eyewitness misidentification, unreliable forensic evidence, racial bias, and more. In some instances, our clients have come within days of execution. These cases powerfully establish that — notwithstanding legislative and constitutional guarantees of increased scrutiny for and oversight of such cases — the capital punishment system is deeply flawed and poses an unconscionable threat to innocent people. For these reasons, the death penalty must be abolished. 

Since 1973, at least 200 people have been exonerated from death row in the U.S., according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). A 2014 study estimated that at least 4% of those sentenced to death are innocent. These numbers don’t demonstrate the full scope of the impact that the death penalty has on the problem of wrongful conviction as the threat of the death penalty causes innocent people to plead guilty and induces false testimony from witnesses.

The vast majority of people exonerated from death row are Black or Latinx, and more than half of death row exonerees are Black. Studies consistently demonstrate that the race of the accused and/or race of the victim plays an arbitrary yet determinative role in the administration of the death penalty. This is significant in the context of wrongful conviction because official misconduct has been documented in three-fourths of the cases of Black exonerees and two-thirds of the cases of Latinx exonerees, while official misconduct is present in less than 60% of the cases of white exonerees.

Although the Constitution promises equal justice for all, race continues to affect every stage of a capital case from arrest and investigation to eventual execution. Most homicides are intra-racial (white people are more likely to kill white people, Black people are more likely to kill Black people, etc.), but the use of the death penalty for inter-racial crimes has always been lopsided. Nearly 300 Black people accused of murdering white people have been executed since 1976. That’s almost 17 times more than the number of white people executed for murdering Black people, the DPIC notes.

The Innocence Project currently represents people on death row with strong claims of innocence and supports coalitions working to ban the use of the death penalty. Virginia, Colorado, and New Hampshire became the most recent states to outlaw capital punishment, but 27 states, the federal government, and the U.S. military still allow the use of this arbitrary and brutal punishment.

Stop the Oct. 17 execution of Robert Roberson

case study capital punishment innocent

people exonerated from death row

Black people exonerated from death row, u.s. states still allow the death penalty, death penalty cases, clemente aguirre-jarquin.

Clemente Aguirre (center) and his attorney, Joshua Dubin (R), in court after he was exonerated on Nov. 5, 2018. (Image: Phelan Ebanhack)

Kirk Bloodsworth

Time Served: 8 years

Kirk Bloodsworth

Kennedy Brewer

Time Served: 15 years

Kennedy Brewer

Rolando Cruz

Time Served: 10 years

Rolando Cruz

Michael Blair

Time Served: 14 years

Charles Irvin Fain

Time Served: 18 years

Alejandro Hernandez

Alejandro Hernandez

Time Served: 23 years

Paul House

Verneal Jimerson

Time Served: 11 years

Verneal Jimerson

Ronald Jones

Ronald Jones

Ryan Matthews

Time Served: 5 years

Ryan Matthews

Curtis McCarty

Time Served: 21 years

Curtis McCarty

Robert Miller

Frank lee smith.

Frank Lee Smith

Damon Thibodeaux

Damon Thibodeaux (left) on the day of his release.

Earl Washington

Time Served: 16 years

Earl Washington

Ron Williamson

Ron Williamson

Dennis Williams

Dennis Williams

Nicholas Yarris

Nicholas Yarris

He Didn’t Kill His Child, But He’s About to Be Executed Anyway

Related news, trial court recommends melissa lucio’s conviction and death sentence be overturned.

Melissa Lucio poses for a portrait behind glass at the Mountain View Unit in Gatesville, Texas. (Image: Ilana Panich-Linsman for The Innocence Project)

Rebuttal from Robert Roberson’s Legal Team to 10.23.2024 Statement from Office of Attorney General (OAG)

Robert Roberson visited with Texas state legislators on Sept. 27, 2024 in Livingston. (Photo courtesy of Rep. John Bucy III)

Robert Roberson Will Not Be Executed in Texas Tonight

12/19/23, Livingston, Texas: Robert Roberson photographed through plexiglass at TDCJ Polunsky Unit. Ilana Panich-Linsman for The Innocence Project

We've helped free more than 250 innocent people from prison. Support our work to strengthen and advance the innocence movement.

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The Case of Gary Graham - Facts

The case of gary graham.

Photo of Gary Graham on Death Row

Bobby Grant Lambert, a 53-year-old white resident of Tucson, Arizona, was visiting Houston, Texas in May 1981. The purpose of his trip to Houston was unknown. He was staying at a nearby motel, but had checked out shortly before his trip to the grocery store.

The Suspect

  • Graham's Guilty Plea to Robbery Charges (980 KB PDF)
  • Houston Chronicle graphic illustrating Graham's crime spree (144 KB PDF)

The Primary Eyewitness

  • Bernadine Skillern (256 KB jpeg)
  • Daniel Grady (204 KB jpeg)
  • Ronald Hubbard (208 KB jpeg)
  • Wilma Amos (316 KB jpeg)
  • Sherian Etuk (228 KB jpeg)
  • Portion of the Houston PD offense report describing the photo identification of Graham (180 KB jpeg)
  • Portion of the Houston PD offense report describing the line-up (484 KB jpeg)
  • Houston Chronicle graphic depicting witness locations at the time of the murder (142KB PDF)

Picture of Bernadine Skillern

Bernadine Skillern was a 45-year-old black Houston school district clerk who was sitting in her car in the Safeway parking lot the night of the murder. She told the police that she saw a man put a pistol to Lambert’s head. When she blew her horn, the gunman turned to look at her. She heard a pop; Lambert dropped his bag of groceries, and the other man fled. She followed the suspect in her car until her screaming children made her stop. She said that she got a good look at the killer for about a minute and a half through the windshield of her car, which was 20 to 30 feet away from the murder.

On May 26, 1981, after describing the perpetrator to the police, Skillern picked Graham’s mug shot from a photo spread that consisted of Graham and four “fill-ins." The following day, she identified him as the murderer from a face-to-face lineup. Skillern described the perpetrator as a black male, between 18 and 20 years old, 5’10” to 6 feet tall, with slim build and a slim face that was clean-shaven with a close cut afro. He was wearing a white jacket and black slacks and was carrying a black gun with a long barrel.

Skillern identified Graham as the gunman from this photo spread. Graham is the fourth from the left.

Next: The Trial

IMAGES

  1. CAPITAL PUNISHMENT Current Case Studies

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  2. CAPITAL PUNISHMENT Current Case Studies

    case study capital punishment innocent

  3. Capital Punishment Study Reveals 78% of Death Penalty Cases Overturned

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  4. PPT

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  5. Capital Punishment in India

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  6. Essay Injustice of capital punishment

    case study capital punishment innocent

VIDEO

  1. Teaser Case Study

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  5. NL GOVT CONDEMNS CAPITAL PUNISHMENT ISSUED BY NSCN (KHANGO) FACTION

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