Florida has sentenced more innocent people to death than any other state. We are three of them — living proof that our court system makes mistakes. But we hope our nightmare can be a wake-up call for Floridians to demand greater safeguards in capital cases.
One essential safeguard — requiring a jury be unanimous when recommending death — is now threatened by the Florida Supreme Court. We urge our legislative representatives to maintain the statutes requiring jury unanimity in capital sentencing.
We were each sentenced to death by non-unanimous juries.
A 7-5 jury verdict sentenced Herman Lindsey to death. The Florida Supreme Court would later unanimously conclude that he should have never been convicted.
In 2014, a Pinellas County jury delivered the 7-5 verdict recommending death for Ralph Wright. He was acquitted of all charges in 2017.
Clemente Aguirre was exonerated after 12 years on Florida’s death row. 2 non-unanimous juries, a 7-5 and a 9-3, had recommended a death sentence.
Use of the death penalty is steadily declining across the country. Public support for the death penalty is at an all-time low with 60 percent of Americans believing life without parole is better than the death penalty.
The death penalty is the highest and most severe penalty. The individuals that make up a jury are ordinary people, susceptible to their own emotions and biases, and have limited knowledge of the legal process. Many jurors have changed their opinion on a case years later.
Florida has exonerated 29 people from death row. This shows that we have taken steps to recognize and correct wrongful convictions.
Jury unanimity is a tool to prevent them in the first place. If it had been required in our trials, the 3 of us would have never set foot on death row or had to face the threat of execution.
Clemente Aguirre, Herman Lindsey and Ralph Wright Aguirre was released from death row in 2018 when all charges were dropped and he now lives in Tampa.
Wright was an Air Force sergeant and Orange County Deputy Sheriff before being wrongfully convicted.
Lindsey spent 3 years on death row and is now the Board Secretary of Witness to Innocence, a national organization of death row exonerees.
Source: Tampa Bay Times, Opinion, January 2, 2020
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
