Virginia Exonerees Call for Repeal of the Death Penalty
June 1, 2019
The death penalty is riddled with fatal errors, and the American criminal
justice system provides no reliable safeguards against the execution of
innocent people.
We, the undersigned, were wrongfully convicted of serious felonies in
Virginia for a number of reasons including:
eyewitness error
prosecutorial misconduct
the presentation of erroneous evidence
junk forensic science testimony
reliance on unreliable jailhouse snitches
poor legal representation ?
racial prejudice ?
false confession ?
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We know from first-hand experience the nightmare of wrongful conviction
and loss of years of our lives in maximum security prison for crimes that we
did not commit.
A study of death row exonerations between April 2007 and 2017 showed that
every case involved some combination of official misconduct, perjury or false
accusation, or false forensic evidence. 91.2% of the cases had multiple
contributing factors and 47.1% had three or more contributing causes.
Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, 165 men and women from
28 states have been exonerated and freed from death row.
On average, an exonerated death row survivor spends 11.5 years behind
bars for crimes they did not commit.
For every nine prisoners executed, one innocent person was condemned to
die and later exonerated.
As long as the death penalty remains a part of the American justice system,
innocent people will continue to be sentenced to death, and some will be
executed. It is inevitable.
How many other innocent people still await execution or have already been
killed, meeting an unjust and undeserved fate?
It is time for the Virginia General Assembly to repeal capital punishment
once and for all to ensure that no innocent persons are ever put to death for
a crime that they did not commit.
Virginia Exonerees Call for Repeal of the Death Penalty
June 1, 2019
| agree with this statement and am willing to be publicly identified as a supporter.
Name (print):
City/Town:
State:
Crime for which | was wrongfully convicted:
Locality where | was convicted:
Number of years in prison before my release:
Signature:
Date signed:
