North Carolina exonerates third death row prisoner in four months
Posted by Chris T. on Friday, May 2nd, 2008
In the last four months, my state has exonerated three former death row inmates — that's not a commutation of their sentences but outright exonerations. The state could no longer make a meaningful case against them in court. Charges against the third, Bo Jones, will be dropped today. The case has fallen apart in the wake of allegations that a central witness in the case was coached by detectives. Jones has been in prison since 2006 when his previous conviction was overturned, waiting to be tried again.
The long list of such exonerations casts serious doubt on the death penalty in North Carolina, and other states have similar lists. They are a litany of predominantly poor African-American men, many of them with untreated mental health issues. If three deeply flawed cases have come to light in just the last four months, how many more people sit on death row who are innocent, or were improperly tried, or did not play quite the central role in their crimes that prosecutors suggested at trial?
People of Faith Against the Death Penalty is calling for a suspension of executions until the state can begin to answer some of these questions. We cannot keep executing people on death row when there are grave, grave deficiencies in the system.
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