The legal system failed these individuals in the worst way possible. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’ll be looking at the most egregious miscarriages of justice, in which individuals were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death, only to later be exonerated.
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00:00Ron Kieny was supposed to be executed in 1975, alongside his friends, for a brutal murder
00:06another man confessed to.
00:08Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we'll be looking at the most egregious miscarriages
00:12of justice, in which individuals were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death, only to
00:17later be exonerated.
00:18And then you find out, oh, my bad, we made a mistake.
00:23Curtis Flowers.
00:24On July 16, 1996, four people were found dead inside a furniture store in Winona, Mississippi.
00:30The police quickly focused on Curtis Flowers, an African-American man who had been fired
00:33from the store about two weeks earlier.
00:35Flowers was tried six times for these murders, four of which ended in him being convicted
00:39and sentenced to death.
00:40Do you have faith in the judicial system here?
00:43Yes, sir, I do not.
00:44The case eventually reached the Supreme Court, which overturned the conviction in 2019.
00:48The court found that District Attorney Doug Evans had largely excluded black people from
00:52the jury in all six trials.
00:53Two of the trials ended in a hung jury.
00:56With new evidence and alternative suspects suggesting Flowers' innocence, the state decided
01:00to drop all charges against him.
01:01By this point, he had already spent over 20 years sitting on death row.
01:05I knew it would, but I didn't know when.
01:07Glenn Ford.
01:08When Isidore Roseman was killed in his Shreveport, Louisiana jewelry store on November 5, 1983,
01:13Glenn Ford, Roseman's handyman, was arrested.
01:16The physical evidence linking Ford to the murder was minimal.
01:19Police had found gunshot residue on his hand, and he was apparently seen with certain items
01:22stolen from the crime scene.
01:24Nonetheless, prosecutors exploited his defense lawyer's inexperience and managed to secure
01:28a conviction and death sentence.
01:30Even though there was no eyewitness and no murder weapon, the jury came back with a guilty
01:34verdict and a death sentence.
01:37It wasn't until 2014, after information emerged about the real killer, that Ford's conviction
01:41was overturned and he was released.
01:43Sadly, his freedom didn't last long.
01:45Ford was diagnosed with lung cancer shortly after his release, and he passed away in 2015,
01:49never receiving compensation for his wrongful conviction.
01:52What do you think the lesson from your case is?
01:55It's forgiveness, I guess.
01:58Anthony Porter.
01:59In 1983, Anthony Porter was convicted and sentenced to death for a double murder in
02:02Chicago, Illinois.
02:04In 1998, he was just 48 hours away from being executed when a judge decided to grant him
02:09a stay.
02:10It made me feel my cough, man.
02:12It was awful.
02:13The following year, Porter was exonerated after a team of Northwestern University professors
02:17and students presented new evidence, including a recording of Alstory Simon confessing to
02:21the murders.
02:22Simon was subsequently sentenced to prison, but was also exonerated after he recanted
02:25his confession, claiming he was tricked by the Northwestern team.
02:28Despite spending 17 years on death row, Porter was denied compensation, and he passed away
02:33in 2021.
02:34However, his case played a major role in the abolition of the death penalty in Illinois.
02:38The Anthony Porter case was one of the cases that drew nationwide attention to Illinois
02:44and the problem of wrongful convictions here.
02:46Walter McMillan
02:47In the case of Walter McMillan, it was guilty until proven innocent.
02:50An African-American man, McMillan was arrested in June 1987 for the murder of a white lady
02:55in Monroeville, Alabama.
02:56You didn't kill Ronda Mars?
02:57No, sir.
02:58I ain't never seen Ronda Mars a day in my life.
03:00He was sent straight to death row, where he sat for 15 months before even facing a trial.
03:05Despite numerous witnesses confirming he was with his family at the time of the crime and
03:08no incriminating physical evidence, McMillan was found guilty by a jury.
03:11Although they recommended a life sentence, the judge imposed the death penalty instead.
03:15McMillan's fate is now in the hands of the Alabama Supreme Court, which is expected to
03:20decide soon if he's entitled to a new trial.
03:23It was later revealed that the police had coerced witnesses to give false testimony,
03:27and prosecutors had withheld potentially exculpatory evidence.
03:30After six years on death row, McMillan's conviction was overturned in 1993.
03:35As he waved goodbye to death row, there had been no apology from the state.
03:39Ron Kiney
03:40Back in 1974, Ron Kiney was traveling with his motorcycle club across the U.S. when Richard
03:44Velton, a college student, was murdered in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
03:48Despite Kiney and his biker gang being in Los Angeles at the time, authorities still
03:51charged them with the crime.
03:52Then they tell us, we gotta go back to Albuquerque because we did a murder, and we're thinking,
03:58oh boy, you know, this is really getting stupid.
04:01They were convicted after Judith Weir, a local motel maid, testified to witnessing the murder.
04:05However, an investigation by the Detroit News found that Weir had lied on the stand.
04:10Even after she recanted her testimony, the men were denied a new trial.
04:13Ms. Weir was pressured, and we see this a lot with the misuse of the death penalty.
04:19It wasn't until September 1975 when a drifter named Kerry Rodney Lee confessed to the murder,
04:24and ballistics linked his gun to the crime scene, that the charges were dropped and they
04:28were released.
04:29On December 4th, 1975, the judge overturned their convictions, and Ron and his friends
04:34were released from death row.
04:36Sabrina Butler
04:37On April 11th, 1989, Sabrina Butler experienced every mother's worst nightmare, the sudden
04:42death of her infant son.
04:43After unsuccessfully attempting to resuscitate him at home, she rushed him to the hospital
04:47where he was pronounced dead.
04:48The very next day, while still grieving, Butler was arrested and confused of murdering her
04:53own child.
04:54Her attempts to revive him had inadvertently caused internal injuries, but her lawyers
04:58failed to highlight this crucial detail during the trial and called no witnesses to testify
05:02on her behalf.
05:03When we had the retrial, they found out that my son had heart problems, kidney problems.
05:07As a result, she was convicted and sentenced to death, becoming the only woman on Mississippi's
05:11death row.
05:12Butler was just 17 years old when she was convicted and spent six and a half years behind
05:17bars.
05:18This conviction was later overturned, and a second trial, which featured more witnesses
05:22and evidence supporting her innocence, ended in an acquittal.
05:24Are you really exonerated?
05:26No, you're not exonerated.
05:29Gary Drinkard
05:30In September 1993, Gary Drinkard was arrested for the murder of Dalton Pace, an automotive
05:34junk dealer in Decatur, Alabama.
05:36The main evidence against him was the testimony of his half-sister and her partner, who implicated
05:40Drinkard in exchange for having their unrelated robbery charges dropped.
05:44And to get out of it, she told him to rob and kill the man.
05:46Due to the ineffective legal counsel he received, Drinkard was convicted of felony murder and
05:50sentenced to death.
05:51I spent almost six years on death row in Alabama for a crime I didn't commit.
05:56After nearly six years on death row, he was granted a new trial.
05:59This time, his defense presented a witness who confirmed Drinkard was home at the time
06:03of the murder and evidence showing he had a debilitating back injury, which largely
06:06limited his movement.
06:08The jury took only one hour to find him not guilty.
06:10God is the only one who has the right to take a life.
06:13People don't.
06:14Randall Dale Adams
06:15The 1988 documentary The Thin Blue Line revolves around Randall Dale Adams, a man sentenced
06:20to death for the 1976 murder of Texas police officer Robert Wood.
06:25Adams consistently maintained his innocence, even after his sentence was commuted to life
06:28in prison.
06:29He argued that Wood was actually killed by David Ray Harris, who had given him a ride
06:33on the day of the murder.
06:34Why did I meet this kid?
06:35I don't know.
06:36Why did I run out of gas at that time?
06:38I don't know.
06:39In the documentary, Harris admitted that Adams had nothing to do with the crime.
06:42How can you be sure?
06:45Because I'm the one who knows.
06:47This admission, coupled with evidence of prosecutorial misconduct, led to Adams' conviction being
06:52overturned.
06:53Although he was granted a new trial, the district attorney's office chose not to prosecute
06:56the case again, and Adams was released.
06:58He received no compensation from the state of Texas.
07:01She said the first night she pulled into Dallas, it was raining, that it was lightning, and
07:07we were coming into Dallas, and she said if there was ever a hell on earth, it's Dallas
07:12County.
07:13And, you know, she's right.
07:17Ricky Jackson, Wiley Bridgman, and Kwame Ojamu
07:20On May 19, 1975, Harold Franks, a money order collector, was fatally shot outside a grocery
07:25store in Cleveland, Ohio.
07:27Based on the supposed eyewitness testimony of Eddie Vernon, police arrested Ricky Jackson
07:31and brothers Wiley Bridgman and Kwame Ojamu, then known as Ronnie Bridgman.
07:36He told the police that he was getting off the school bus at the exact time that this
07:40crime was happening, and he witnessed the three of us perpetrate this crime.
07:45Vernon's testimony was the only evidence against them, yet it resulted in them being sentenced
07:48to death.
07:49Ojamu was paroled in 2003, but his name wasn't cleared until 2014, when Vernon recanted his
07:54testimony, claiming he had been pressured by the police to testify.
07:57Jackson and Bridgman were also released and fully exonerated.
08:00For their wrongful imprisonment, all three men received millions of dollars in compensation
08:04from the state of Ohio.
08:05How did that feel, that day that you got out of prison?
08:08It was surreal.
08:09It was almost like having an out-of-body experience.
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08:29Ray Krohn
08:30Ray Krohn was tried twice for the 1991 murder of Kim Ancona, a bartender in Phoenix, Arizona.
08:36During his first trial in 1992, the prosecution's case relied on an expert witness who claimed
08:40Krohn's teeth matched the bite marks found on Ancona's body.
08:43Krohn willingly agreed to provide an impression of his teeth by biting into a piece of Styrofoam.
08:49He was ultimately convicted and sentenced to death.
08:52Krohn maintained he was innocent, but he had no explanation for why his bite impression
08:57looked like the wound on Kim Ancona.
08:59The case was retried in 1996, and although he was found guilty again, his sentence was
09:04reduced to life in prison.
09:05Krohn's fate took a turn with the advancement of DNA technology.
09:08In 2002, DNA analysis implicated Kenneth Phillips, a sex offender who lived close to the bar
09:13at the time of the murder.
09:14Krohn was subsequently released and has since become a strong advocate for getting rid of
09:18the death penalty.
09:19I will never forget that day I got out.
09:21In fact, I commemorated it, so I won't ever forget it.
09:27While it's clearly a sensitive topic, we'd like to know your thoughts on whether these
09:30examples make a case for abolishing the death penalty.
09:33Share them respectfully in the comments below.
09:35I still have nightmares about it.
09:38It was devastating.
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