{"id":18599,"date":"2021-01-14T01:39:33","date_gmt":"2021-01-14T01:39:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/innocenceproject.org\/?p=36571"},"modified":"2021-01-14T01:39:33","modified_gmt":"2021-01-14T01:39:33","slug":"death-row-exonerees-make-a-plea-to-halt-executions-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/01\/14\/death-row-exonerees-make-a-plea-to-halt-executions-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Death Row Exonerees Make a Plea to Halt Executions"},"content":{"rendered":"
At approximately 1:30 a.m. this morning, the federal government executed Lisa Montgomery in Terre Haute, Indiana. Ms. Montgomery was the first woman in 67 years to be put to death by federal authorities, since Bonnie Brown Heady and Ethel Rosenberg in 1953<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Corey Johnson and Dustin Higgs, who were also scheduled to die this week in an ongoing spate of federal executions, were granted stays of execution after contracting COVID-19. The government is actively appealing the stays.<\/span><\/p>\n According to the <\/span>Death Penalty Information Center<\/span><\/a>, 173 people have been exonerated from death row over the last 48 years. Included among that group are 23 Innocence Project clients and survivors. Unsurprisingly, many of these death row exonerees have become ardent advocates against the death penalty. Indeed, organizations like <\/span>Witness to Innocence<\/span><\/a>, an exoneree-led abolition organization, have played an important role in the recent death penalty bans in New Hampshire, California, and Washington.<\/span><\/p>\n Decades of Innocence Project exoneration cases document the fundamental flaws in the administration of the death penalty, and the grave risks it poses to innocent lives. For example, Black people are condemned to death at an arbitrary and disproportionate rate and account for more than 40%<\/a>\u00a0of people currently on death row.<\/span><\/p>\n Further, studies repeatedly show that Black people are more likely to be wrongfully convicted of murder if the victim was white, according to the <\/span>National Registry of Exonerations<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n And the <\/span>Death Penalty Information Center<\/span><\/a> reports that those who are convicted of killing white victims are over four times more likely to be executed than those convicted of killing Black victims.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Several of our clients, including <\/span>Eddie Lee Howard<\/span><\/a>, who was exonerated just days ago \u2014 on Jan. 8 \u2014 are Black men who were wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to death in cases involving a white victim. Mr. Howard\u2019s conviction and death sentence for the murder of an elderly white woman were largely based on bite mark evidence<\/a>, an invalid forensic method. He spent the last 26 years on Mississippi death row, until he was freed in December 2020. With powerful DNA evidence and new forensic science findings pointing to his innocence, Mr. Howard was then exonerated. He was represented by the Innocence Project and Mississippi Innocence Project<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Robert DuBoise, Paul Hildwin, Clemente Aguirre, and Kirk Bloodsworth were each wrongfully convicted of capital murder and wrongfully condemned to death. They felt compelled to speak out about the urgent need to stop upcoming federal executions:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n