name someone innocent
as in post execution pardon, admission of mistake etc.
Wiki post incoming!
Of the American cases, one often quoted is the execution of Jesse Tafero in Florida. Tafero was convicted along with an accomplice, Sonia Jacobs, of murdering two police officers in 1976 while the two were fleeing drug charges; each was sentenced to death based partially on the testimony of a third person, Walter Rhodes, a prison acquaintance of Tafero's who was an accessory to the crime and who testified against the pair in exchange for a lighter sentence. Jacobs's death sentence was commuted in 1981. In 1982, Rhodes recanted his testimony and claimed full responsibility for the crime. Despite Rhodes's admission, Tafero was executed in 1990. In 1992 the conviction against Jacobs was quashed and the state subsequently did not have enough evidence to retry her. She then entered an Alford plea and was sentenced to time served. It has been presumed that, as the same evidence was used against Tafero as against Jacobs, Tafero would have been released as well had he still been alive.[7]
Johnny Frank Garrett of Texas was executed for allegedly raping and murdering a nun. Evidence and testimony originally suggested a Cuban individual before Frank became the main suspect. The flawed case is explored in a 2008 Documentary "The Last Word".
Wayne Felker, a convicted rapist, is also claimed by some observers to have been an innocent victim of execution. Felker was a suspect in the disappearance of a Georgia (US) woman in 1981 and was under police surveillance for two weeks prior to the woman's body being found. The autopsy was conducted by an unqualified technician, and the results were changed to show the death occurring before the surveillance had begun. After Felker's conviction, his lawyers presented testimony by forensics experts that the body could not have been dead more than three days when found; a stack of evidence was found hidden by the prosecution that hadn't been presented in court, including DNA evidence that might have exonerated Felker or cast doubt on his guilt. There was also a signed confession by another suspect in the paperwork, but despite all this, Felker was executed in 1996. In 2000, his case was reopened in an attempt to make him the first executed person in the US to have DNA testing used to prove his innocence after his execution. [8]
Cameron Willingham was executed in Texas in 2004 for an arson fire in 1991 which took the lives of his three small daughters. Subsequently, doubt has been cast on the forensic evidence which underlay the conviction, particularly whether evidence existed of an accelerant having been used to start the blaze.
Thomas and Meeks Griffin were executed in 1915 for the murder of a man involved in an interracial affair two years before but were pardoned 94 years after execution. It is thought that they were arrested and charged because they were not wealthy enough to hire competent legal counsel and get an acquittal.[9]
Timothy Evans in the United Kingdom, was tried and executed in 1950 for the murder of his baby daughter Geraldine. An official inquiry conducted 16 years later determined that it was Evans's fellow tenant, serial killer John Reginald Halliday Christie, who was responsible for the murder. Christie also admitted to the murder of Evans's wife as well as five other women and his own wife. Christie may have murdered other women, judging by evidence found in his possession at the time of his arrest, but it was never pursued by the police. Evans was pardoned posthumously following this, in 1966. The case prompted the abolition of capital punishment in the UK in 1965.
Derek Bentley was a mentally challenged young man who was executed in 1953, also in the United Kingdom. He was convicted of the murder of a police officer during an attempted robbery despite the fact that it was his accomplice who fired the gun, and Bentley was under arrest at the time of the shooting. The accomplice who actually fired the fatal shot could not be executed owing to his young age.[10]
Chipita Rodriguez was hanged in San Patricio County, Texas in 1863 for murdering a horse trader, and 122 years later, the Texas Legislature passed a resolution exonerating her.