I need to know if there are any documented cases of individuals being
found innocent after having been put to death by the death penalty in
the United States. I know there are many cases where there are many
questions about a person's guilt after the fact, but what I need to
know is whether there are any cases where a person has been found to
be completely innocent after having beren put to death. Some have
mentioned the Salem Witch Trials. This is not the type of thing I am
looking for. I'm interested in cases that have taken place within the
last 75 years in the United States.

---

Clarification of Question by elanas-ga on 26 Sep 2005 17:16 PDT

Thank you for the response that was already sent to me. I need to clarify...
The reason I am asking this questions is because of the exact case
that you sent me. I am doing research on death penalty reform and the
case of this man in missouri is very interesting. I would like to know
if, before his case, there were any cases where individuals have been
found 'not guilty' after having been executed. In short, I was aware
of this case but am looking for something else!
Thanks!

This case may be of interest to you:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8556687/

This site mentions that 23 persons have been wrongly executed, but
does not seem to provide links to cases or names.

http://www.karisable.com/crpundeath.htm

Certainly the many cases of last minute suspension of sentences and
reversals suggests that innocent persons have been executed, but
posthumous reopening of cases is very unusual, even when later
evidence proves innocence or highly questions the sentence.  Here is
another interesting site:

http://www.truthinjustice.org/DNA-DP.htm

As I understand your clarification, the search is for reopened cases
that resulted in a reversal of the decision or a posthumous pardon.

Check this:
http://kstp.com/article/stories/S10179.html?cat=1
Here is a British case:
http://web1.pipemedia.net/~sar/bentley/irisobit.html

This is somewhat applicable (read to the end for the pardon):
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/frank.html

I have to run, Myoarin

Dear elanas-ga;

Consider these examples:

Lena Baker, the only woman ever executed in the Georgia electric chair
(March 5, 1945), was posthumously pardoned on August 15, 2005. Baker
had been convicted of the first-degree murder for killing E.B. Knight
(a man with a broken leg whom she worked for as caretaker) by an
all-white, all-male jury during a one-day trial. It was later
determined that Baker clearly acted reasonably in self-defense against
Knight who had not only sexually abused her but had also threatened
her life with a branding iron after she told him that she was quitting
her job as his personal caretaker.

JUSTICE FOR LENA BAKER
http://www.workers.org/2005/us/lena-baker-0908/


On August 23, 1927, the state of Massacheisetts put Italian immigrants
Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti to death for a homicide they are
now believed to have been wrongfully accused of. Singer Woody Guthrie
would immortalize their ?murders? in a ballad 1960.  In 1977 then
Governor Michael Dukakis posthumously pardoned both men after a review
of the case found tat the trial unfairly focused on their political
beliefs and resulted in their improper conviction:

?Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were arrested for robbery and
murder of a paymaster and his guard at a shoe factory in South
Braintree, Massachusetts, in April 1920. They were tried and found
guilty. Their electrocution took place seven years later, in spite of
the emergence of contradictory evidence, a retracted testimony, and
new evidence pointing to other culprits. Half a century later ? in
1977 ? they were posthumously pardoned.?
THE CLASSIC BALLADS OF SACCO AND VANZETTI
http://www.huddnewcoll.ac.uk/intranet/Geography/NI/issue289/reviews.htm

Do these three example answer your question?

Regards;
Tutuzdad-ga

Yes, indeed, I should have mentioned that Lena Baker was the person in
one of my links.  Several places it was mentioned that it is very
difficult to get such cases reopened.  The legal establishments of
court and state prosecution have an abhorance to that, just human
nature of the people in the "establishment", and there seldom is an
instance to press the case, the importance of which the British  case
made apparent.
A gubernatoral pardon is easier since it overrides the existing
decision without forcing those establishments to put their noses in
the dirt (rather like a method of housebreaking puppies).
But in that regard, somewhere in my first link, it was suggested that
reopening cases would have an influence on the handling of death
penalty cases.  There was also a statement the one in five lawyers
defending such cases were eventually debarred or convicted of
something themselves (I am not sure of the wording).

Good luck, I hope you get more support for your research, Myoarin

Although not directly related to this question, you may wish do a search on 
Timothy Evans. He was hanged in England in 1950 and then pardoned in 1963
(not that that helped him!)

The case was however instrumental in the abolition of the death
penalty in the UK. The story is well told in the movie "10 Rillington
Place".

It has also been noted by several people that had the death penalty
still been on the books in the UK in the 1970's , the Guildford  four
and Birmingham six would almost certainly have been executed.

Ludovic Kennedy (Scottish Television Journalist) did much to expose
the miscarriage of justice in the case of Timothy Evans.

He has also cast doublt on the execution of Bruno Hauptmann for the murder of 
Charles Lindnergh's baby (Story detailed in the "Airman and the Carpenter".


Mongolia

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0786712589/ref=sib_dp_pt/104-5472623-1546336#reader-page

The following book may be of interest

"The Wrong Men"

by "Stanley Cohen"

Kind regards

Ross (Australia)

I also highly recommend watching The Thin Blue Line, an award winning
documentary directed by Errol Morris, and recently released on DVD. 
Scary stuff.  Here's a link...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00094AS72/104-0091855-0475919?v=glance&n=130&n=507846&s=dvd&v=glance

Some trivia about this case from Amazon...

* The release of this film resulted in Randall Adams' case being
reopened. He was exonerated. He then filed suit against filmmaker
Errol Morris over the rights to his life.

* Morris spent 2 1/2 years tracking down the various players in the
Randall Adams case and convincing them to appear in the film.

* In light of the new evidence uncovered by the film, an evidentiary
hearing was held. Harris testified, recanting his earlier accusations
of Adams. "Randall Adams knew nothing about this offense and was not
in the car at the time," Harris testified. Adams' capital murder
verdict was overturned, and he was released from prison in March 1989.

* David Harris, at age 43, was executed by lethal injection on 30 June
2004 in Huntsville, Texas for murdering a man, Mark Mays, during an
attempted kidnapping. That crime occurred on 1 September 1985, and was
unrelated to Harris's crime of killing the policeman in the movie. The
Mays case was mentioned in the film, it was the case where Harris was
wounded in the neck before the victim was killed.

    -welte-ga

Fascinating Question...

This may interest you:

[near the bottom]
http://www.thenewamerican.com/focus/cap_punishment/vo06no17_cruel.htm
..."An August 3, 1966 study by the Legislative Reference Service (LRS)
of the Library of Congress reported: "There have been no known cases
of the execution of an innocent man in this country." Yet, due to the
fallible nature of our judicial system, it is likely that there have
been a few instances when innocent persons have been executed wrongly.
Bedau and Radelet cite one case from the last century that the LRS
apparently overlooked. William Jackson Marion was hanged in Nebraska
on March 25, 1887. "Four years after the execution," the authors
assert, "the supposed victim of Marion's homicide was found to be
alive."  ..."