Innocent people are sentenced to death

How many more innocent people’s lives must be destroyed before we end the death penalty?

Across the country, innocent people receive the death penalty with shocking frequency. Nearly 200 people have now been exonerated from America’s death rows. In North Carolina, twelve people have so far been exonerated after receiving death sentences, but not before serving a combined 157 years in prison. Henry McCollum was sentenced to death at 19 for a crime he had nothing to do with, and spent 30 years on death row before finally being freed.

Exonerations are often joyful events, but we should not mistake them for a sign that the system works. Only a deeply unjust system would routinely send innocent people — almost all of them people of color — to their deaths. When these horrible miscarriages of justice are finally exposed, state leaders do nothing to take stock of a capital punishment system that nearly killed another innocent person. Many death row exonerees do not even receive compensation for the time they served in prison. 

Meanwhile, every exoneration means that the person who caused harm was not held accountable. This realization often causes tremendous pain to surviving family members, who must accept that the person who killed their loved one may never face consequences.

There are almost certainly more innocent people on North Carolina’s death row today. This is reason enough to end the death penalty.

Stories of Innocent People on Death Row

Case File: Henry McCollum & Leon Brown

Brothers spent 31 years in prison before DNA proved them innocent

Henry & Leon were intellectually disabled teenagers when they were taken from their home in rural Robeson County, coerced into confessing to a brutal murder they didn’t commit, and sentenced to death. When they were finally released from prison in 2014, Henry was North Carolina’s longest-serving death row prisoner.

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Case File: Darryl Hunt

Because of a single juror, he was spared the death penalty for a rape and murder he did not commit

Darryl Hunt was not spared, however, from spending 19 years in prison — ten of those after DNA evidence showed he was not the culprit. After his release, he devoted his life to activism.

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Case File: Levon “Bo” Jones

A single dishonest witness sent him to death row for 13 years

The state’s case against Bo Jones was based almost entirely on the testimony of one witness, who told police five different stories and received a $4,000 “reward.” He was released only after she officially recanted in 2008.

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Case File: Alan Gell

A prosecutor hid evidence and bribed witnesses to secure his death sentence

Alan Gell’s defense attorneys didn’t find out until years later that the prosecutor had a recording of key witnesses plotting to make up a story to incriminate Alan. The prosecutor also withheld statements from seventeen of Mr. Jenkins’ friends and neighbors, who told investigators they saw the victim alive well after the time when Alan could have committed the murder.

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Case File: Edward Chapman

Fourteen years after his exoneration, he’s still awaiting the pardon he deserves

Ed Chapman spent 14 years on death row, endured the executions of several friends, was cut off from his family, and wasn’t able to hug his mother before she died. Since his exoneration, he has struggled to put his life back together. North Carolina has failed to provide the most basic compensation for his wrongful conviction.

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Case File: Jonathan Hoffman

At the urging of a DA who wore a noose-shaped lapel pin, an all-white jury sentenced him to death

Prosecutors were later criminally investigated for making a secret deal with witnesses, who lied to implicate Jonathan Hoffman. He spent more than a decade on death row before being exonerated.

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