# Proven cases of innocent people wrongly convicted and executed in USA? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 11, 2007, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proven-cases-of-innocent-people-wrongly-convicted-and-executed-in-usa/387539 "2007-01-11T13:30:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2007, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proven-cases-of-innocent-people-wrongly-convicted-and-executed-in-usa/387539/21 "2007-01-12T15:33:46Z")
[QUOTE=DrDeth] In other cases, we have\* bad\* dudes, \*criminal _dudes, in whose cases the evidence for guilt for that murder was weak. That’s different from the State executing an_ innocent \*man, it’s just a man who was possibly guilty but in hindsight, the States case wasn’t really watertight. [/quote] That’s not very different at all from executing an innocent man. If they didn’t commit the crime they were executed for, they’re innocent, regardless of whatever other crimes they may have committed. > [@DrDeth](#): > > We also sometimes have remorse in the case of a witness, who after decades comes forth and sez his testimony really wasn’t good. Cantu was one of those cases. But I don’t. There was other evidence other that the witnesses, and after 30 years memories are pretty damn unrelaible. Maybe in 1984 the witness was 100% sure, but now after 30 years his memory is playing tricks on him. However, I certainly agree there was no real need to execute Cantu, Life w/o Parole would have been fine in his case. Texas again. :rolleyes: You, **Bricker** and I went over all this supposed “other evidence” connecting Cantu to the murder in [this thread about the Cantu case](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=346110&page=1&pp=50), starting around page 6 or 7. There was none. The only evidence connecting Cantu to the murder was the testimony of the eyewitness, who has now recanted. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2007, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proven-cases-of-innocent-people-wrongly-convicted-and-executed-in-usa/387539/22 "2007-01-12T19:47:58Z")
[QUOTE=Fear Itself] [Here are seven cases](http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=6&did=111#executed) of executions between 1993 and 2004 where evidence or testimony indicates the executed was probably innocent. The weight of the evidence for innocence varies, but some are very convincing: [/QUOTE] No, that does not convince me. Largely it consists of people stating _opinions_ that someone innocent was executed. An opinion is no sort of evidence. I’m not claiming that the opinion is wrong, I’d just need to see a much more detailed account of the facts. Give me some basis to justify the opinion. > [@DrDeth](#): > > None. Some dudes families have chased “innocent” after the execution but so far none. That Doctor executed for killing his wife? Which doctor are you talking about? Sam Sheppard? The guy that inspired _The Fugitive_? He wasn’t executed. > **[Sam Sheppard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Sheppard)** > > Samuel Holmes Sheppard ((1923-12-29)December 29, 1923 – (1970-04-06)April 6, 1970) was an American osteopath. He was convicted of the 1954 murder of his pregnant wife, Marilyn Reese Sheppard, but the conviction was eventually overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, which cited a "carnival atmosphere" at the trial. Sheppard was acquitted at a retrial in 1966. Sheppard was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the youngest of three sons of Richard Allen Sheppard, D.O. He attended Cleveland Heights High School w... > [@](#): > > The case that I think shows “innocent man executed” most is the Texas father executed for killing his family during a home fire. Again, I don’t know which case you mean. You may perhaps mean one of these cases : #104 Madison Hobley #120 Earnest Ray Willis From this list : [http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=6&did=109](http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=6&did=109) Again, neither of them were executed. They were both acquitted while still alive. f you meant some other case, I apologise, but please give the name. > [@groman](#): > > I’m fairly sure that if you get executed for murder and your victim shows up alive … 99% proof that you were innocent. Has this ever happened? I heard of a case where this happened, about 1899 IIRC. I’ll try to dig up the details. Certainly none since 1960. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2007, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proven-cases-of-innocent-people-wrongly-convicted-and-executed-in-usa/387539/23 "2007-01-12T20:22:06Z")
[QUOTE=Peter Morris] No, that does not convince me. Largely it consists of people stating _opinions_ that someone innocent was executed. An opinion is no sort of evidence. [/QUOTE] Oddly enough, opinion acutally sent two of the men on that list to their deaths. Opinon is evidence if it’s expert opinion, which is what convicted Cameron Willingham and Ernest Willis. A panel of five arson investigators examined the evidence in their trials and concluded that the methodolgies used by the investigators who testified had since been thoroughly discredited. Those accounts are admittedly pretty bare-bones and brief, but there’s lots more information on each of those cases all over the internet, like the Chronicle story on Cantu above. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2007, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proven-cases-of-innocent-people-wrongly-convicted-and-executed-in-usa/387539/24 "2007-01-12T20:33:32Z")
[QUOTE=pravnik] That’s not very different at all from executing an innocent man. If they didn’t commit the crime they were executed for, they’re innocent, regardless of whatever other crimes they may have committed. . [/QUOTE] Look carefully at what I said “In other cases, we have bad dudes, criminal dudes, in whose cases the evidence for guilt for that murder was weak. That’s different from the State executing an innocent man, it’s just a man who was possibly guilty but in hindsight, the States case wasn’t really watertight.” I didn’t say that the executed man didn’t commit the murder which lead to his execution, I said that the evidence which lead to his conviction sometimes appears less watertight afterwards. In other words, the “new evidence” doesn’t show that the executed dude was innocent- just that there seems now to be more doubt. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2007, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proven-cases-of-innocent-people-wrongly-convicted-and-executed-in-usa/387539/25 "2007-01-12T20:36:58Z")
[QUOTE=Peter Morris] Which doctor are you talking about? Sam Sheppard? The guy that inspired _The Fugitive_? He wasn’t executed. > **[Sam Sheppard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Sheppard)** > > Samuel Holmes Sheppard ((1923-12-29)December 29, 1923 – (1970-04-06)April 6, 1970) was an American osteopath. He was convicted of the 1954 murder of his pregnant wife, Marilyn Reese Sheppard, but the conviction was eventually overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, which cited a "carnival atmosphere" at the trial. Sheppard was acquitted at a retrial in 1966. Sheppard was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the youngest of three sons of Richard Allen Sheppard, D.O. He attended Cleveland Heights High School w... Again, I don’t know which case you mean. You may perhaps mean one of these cases : #104 Madison Hobley #120 Earnest Ray Willis From this list : [http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=6&did=109](http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=6&did=109) Again, neither of them were executed. They were both acquitted while still alive. f you meant some other case, I apologise, but please give the name. . [/QUOTE] Don;t remember the Doctor, but the arson case is [http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/na/chi-0412090169dec09,1,2000542.story?coll=chi-newsspecials-hed](http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/na/chi-0412090169dec09,1,2000542.story?coll=chi-newsspecials-hed) Cameron Todd Willingham. "While Texas authorities dismissed his protests, a Tribune investigation of his case shows that Willingham was prosecuted and convicted based primarily on arson theories that have since been repudiated by scientific advances. According to four fire experts consulted by the Tribune, the original investigation was flawed and it is even possible the fire was accidental…The author of the report, Gerald Hurst, reviewed additional documents, trial testimony and an hourlong videotape of the aftermath of the fire scene at the Tribune’s request last month. Three other fire investigators–private consultants John Lentini and John DeHaan and Louisiana fire chief Kendall Ryland–also examined the materials for the newspaper. “There’s nothing to suggest to any reasonable arson investigator that this was an arson fire,” said Hurst, a Cambridge University-educated chemist who has investigated scores of fires in his career. “It was just a fire.” Ryland, chief of the Effie Fire Department and a former fire instructor at Louisiana State University, said that, in his workshop, he tried to re-create the conditions the original fire investigators described. When he could not, he said, it “made me sick to think this guy was executed based on this investigation. … They executed this guy and they’ve just got no idea–at least not scientifically–if he set the fire, or if the fire was even intentionally set.”" ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2007, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proven-cases-of-innocent-people-wrongly-convicted-and-executed-in-usa/387539/26 "2007-01-12T20:41:01Z")
Scratch that; I mean sent two men to the death chamber. Earnest Willis isn’t dead. He was convicted of the capital murder of two women by arson and spent 17 years in prison, but was exonerated when it was shown that the forensic methods used to convict him had since been wholly discredited. He sued the state and won an award of $430,000. He was released October 6, 2004. The five man panel concluded that the exact same methodologies were used to convict Cameron Willingham, who executed February 17, 2004. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2007, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proven-cases-of-innocent-people-wrongly-convicted-and-executed-in-usa/387539/27 "2007-01-12T20:44:44Z")
[QUOTE=DrDeth] Look carefully at what I said “In other cases, we have bad dudes, criminal dudes, in whose cases the evidence for guilt for that murder was weak. That’s different from the State executing an innocent man, it’s just a man who was possibly guilty but in hindsight, the States case wasn’t really watertight.” I didn’t say that the executed man didn’t commit the murder which lead to his execution, I said that the evidence which lead to his conviction sometimes appears less watertight afterwards. In other words, the “new evidence” doesn’t show that the executed dude was innocent- just that there seems now to be more doubt. [/QUOTE] Can you provide an example of such a case? That’s very similar to the argument you were making in the Cantu thread regarding his inadmissable prior shooting of a police officer. ---
**Author:** ![drhess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/94ad74/32.png) [@drhess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drhess)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2007, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proven-cases-of-innocent-people-wrongly-convicted-and-executed-in-usa/387539/28 "2007-01-16T05:36:40Z")
[QUOTE=Jodi] Proof in what sense? There are already cases in which circumstances make it pretty clear an innocent man was executed for a crime he didn’t commit. But the OP is asking for cases in which a person was executed and then “found innocent.” Even if someone else was convicted of the same crime for which you were executed, that would only be a finding that he or she is guilty – not that you are innocent. Is that the obvious implication? Sure. But there will never be a “finding” to that effect. [QUOTE] Ok, I guess I’m thinking not so much “found innocent” by the courts after executed, or “found innocent” as in the proof comes to public light that they were not the killer (perhaps information that would have proved their innocence in court or that would make it impossible for them to have done it). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/proven-cases-of-innocent-people-wrongly-convicted-and-executed-in-usa/387539.md?page=1)