TV | Beginning April 15, Death Row Stories, Innocence Files to Feature Wrongful Death-Penalty Convictions

Beginning April 15, 2020, two television series — one a new program from Netflix and the other new episodes of a returning series from CNN — will highlight stories of wrongful convictions, including some death-penalty cases.

The new Netflix documentary series, The Innocence Files, will debut on April 15, with its first episode featuring the case of Texas death-row exoneree Alfred DeWayne Brown.

The fifth season of CNN’s series, Death Row Stories, will premiere on April 19 with an episode that will tell the story of Ohio death-row prisoner Tyrone Noling, who has maintained his innocence throughout the nearly 30 years he has spent on death row.

The Innocence Files

The Innocence Files will spend nine episodes exploring eight wrongful convictions through the themes of junk science, false eyewitness testimony, and prosecutorial misconduct. It features the work of the Innocence Project, tracing 8 stories of people exonerated with the help of the organization. A team of directors, including Oscar-winner Alex Gibney, use the stories to highlight systemic problems that lead to wrongful convictions, as well as the personal cost to the wrongfully convicted prisoners and their families.

The series premiere looks at the prosecutorial misconduct that led to Brown’s wrongful conviction and death sentence in 2005 for a robbery/murder in which a store clerk and responding police officer were shot to death. Brown claimed that phone records would show he was at his girlfriend’s apartment at the time of the murder. Harris County homicide prosecutor Dan Rizzo had phone records corroborating Brown’s story, but withheld them from the defense, then abused grand jury proceedings to jail Brown’s girlfriend until she agreed to implicate Brown. Brown was exonerated in 2015 after the phone records came to light in a box in a homicide detective’s garage.

The series also features an episode on Mississippi death-row exoneree Kennedy Brewer and the discredited bite-mark evidence that contributed to his 1992 wrongful conviction. DNA testing confirmed his innocence in 2001, and he was exonerated in 2008. Despite numerous cases like Brewer’s and a growing body of research showing that bite-mark evidence is unreliable, it is still accepted in all 50 states.

Other stories in the series will illustrate the challenges of eyewitness identification, especially cross-racial identifications, and the dangers of prosecutorial misconduct, which is a leading cause of wrongful death-penalty convictions. The series presents cases involving witness coercion and withholding of evidence.

The Daily Beast said “The Innocence Files lays bare a handful of significant areas in which our judicial apparatus is prone to making mistakes, or to being exploited by unethical players. It’s a series with its heart in the right place, and arguments that are worth hearing—and heeding—in the interest of creating a more just system for all.”

Death Row Stories

The 5th season of Death Row Stories will air on HLN starting on April 19 with a story of Ohio death-row prisoner Tyrone Noling, who has continuously maintained his innocence of the 1990 murders of Bearnhardt and Cora Hartig. Noling’s case has already been the subject of in-depth reporting by the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Cleveland Scene, and Columbus Dispatch. In 2010, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland and Attorney General Richard Cordray urged prosecutors to allow postconviction DNA testing for Noling and 6 other prisoners with strong claims of innocence. No physical evidence linked Noling to the Hartigs’ murders, but he was convicted on the basis of testimony from 3 co-defendants who have since recanted, saying their testimony was coerced. Thirteen years after his trial, prosecutors revealed police notes showing that a witness had identified another man as the perpetrator.

The 2nd episode of Death Row Stories, scheduled to air on April 26, features the case of former Philadelphia death-row prisoner Terry Williams, whose prosecutor withheld evidence that Williams’ murder victim was a sexual predator whose victims included Williams, instructed the state’s lead witness to be silent about the sexual abuse and to testify that the murder had been part of a robbery, and then argued to the jury that the victim was a “kind man” and innocent good Samaritan who had been murdered after offering Williams a ride home.

Source: Death Penalty Information Center, Staff, April 15, 2020

⚑ | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

Florida | Jury recommends death sentence for Jeffrey Crum in killing of 12-year-old girl

BROOKSVILLE, Fla. — A Hernando County jury has recommended the death penalty for a 65-year-old man who was found guilty last week of raping and killing 12-year-old Jennifer Odom. Sentencing for Jeffrey Crum was held this week. Crum abducted Odom in 1993 after she stepped off her school bus in Pasco County. Her body was found in a Hernando County orange grove six days later.

Hanging of Osaka Arsonist is Japan’s First Execution Under Takaichi Government

As a majority of the international community has abolished capital punishment. Japan and the U.S. are the only two countries in the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations that put people to death. The execution of Takami Sunao—an arsonist whose 2009 attack in Osaka killed five—on August 21, 2026, was Japan’s first use of capital punishment in just over a year. Over a Decade from Sentencing to Execution Takami Sunao was executed on August 21, 2026 , for a 2009 arson attack at an Osaka pachinko parlor that killed five people. In July 2009, Takami poured gasoline on the floor of a pachinko parlor in Osaka and set it alight, killing 5 customers and staff members and injuring 10 more. While the defense argued that he was in a state of diminished capacity, the Supreme Court finalized his death sentence in February 2016. The execution took place 17 years after the initial crime and 10 and a half years after the death sentence was finalized.

Cartoons about Capital Punishment

More cartoons about capital punishment HERE

Spared execution eight times, oldest inmate in US dies at 101 after 76 years behind bars

Francis Clifford Smith was given his last meal eight times. But after being spared execution each time, he went on to be regarded as the longest-serving prisoner in the US before dying in June at 101 years old. Convicted of murder in 1950 when he was 25, he always maintained his innocence, those who knew him told the BBC. Andrius Banevicius, the public information officer for Connecticut's Department of Correction, recounted how Smith used to feed the birds while in Osborn Prison, earning him the nickname The Birdman of Osborn.

Israel builds execution chamber for Palestinians convicted of murder

In March, the Knesset approved legislation that calls for the execution of Palestinians convicted by a military court of killing Israelis Israeli authorities are preparing a prison wing—replete with an execution chamber—designated specifically for Palestinian prisoners convicted of murder, Israel’s i24NEWS channel reported Tuesday. The move comes after the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) approved legislation in March that calls for the execution of Palestinian prisoners convicted by a military court of murdering Israelis.

Japan executes man convicted of killing five in 2009 Osaka pachinko parlor arson

Japan on Friday announced the execution of a man convicted of killing five people after setting fire to an Osaka pachinko parlor in 2009, the first execution by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi 's government as the country faces growing calls for more transparency and the abolition of capital punishment. The Justice Ministry said Sunao Takami, 58, was hanged to death earlier Friday. Takami in 2009 set fire to the crowded pachinko parlor in Osaka by spreading gasoline and throwing a lit match, engulfing the building, killing five and injuring 10 others, Justice Minister Hiroshi Hiraguchi said.

Florida executes William Frances Silvia

Florida executed its 13th death row prisoner of the year Tuesday evening amid the state’s aggressive use of the death penalty championed by Governor Ron DeSantis. William Frances Silvia, 61, who was convicted of fatally shooting his estranged wife and injuring his mother-in-law in 2006, was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m. after receiving the lethal three-drug injection at Florida State Prison. At 6 p.m. Tuesday, Silvia was already strapped to a gurney with an IV in his arm when the curtain to the death chamber went up. He remained relatively motionless with his eyes and mouth open throughout most of the execution while a priest sat at his feet and prayed.

Oklahoma executes Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez

Oklahoma has carried out 1 of 3 executions set for the same day in the United States in another sign of the resurgence of the death penalty in the country. Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez was pronounced dead at 10:13 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 13, at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. He was put to death by lethal injection for the murder of his common-law wife in 2003 at their Oklahoma City home. He admitted to police he shot her twice during an argument. Cuesta-Rodriguez, 70, did not fight for his life, stunning his attorneys in July when he told the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board that he didn't want clemency. "It's time for me to pay for what I did," he said.

Alabama is trying a death penalty bait-and-switch

For a decade, Alabama death row inmate Jeffrey Lee has been clear that he does not want to be executed by lethal injection . But that is what awaits him on September 17 . He faces that prospect because the state has been enjoined from using nitrogen hypoxia , the alternative execution method he preferred, to put him to death. Having failed to show that its nitrogen hypoxia protocol is constitutionally acceptable, Alabama wants a do-over to force Lee to die by lethal injection as a result of its own failure. It should not get one. Alabama should only be able to put Lee to death if it can fix nitrogen hypoxia’s constitutional defects.

Texas | A Dangerous Man. At 18, Billy Joe Wardlow took a man’s life. Nearly 30 years later, the state still wants his.

Like any place humans gather, death row has a culture. Billy Wardlow says it's different in many ways from general population. One is in how new inmates are treated. "In [general population], the guys around you would try to find some way to exploit you," Wardlow said. "Death row, with a few exceptions, will often extend a hand of friendship to the 'new boot' so they can get on their feet ... Most of us get together and let each other know what we can send to the new guy." One of the cherished myths of those who support the death penalty is that it is reserved for the “worst of the worst,” those beyond redemption. Wardlow typically sends writing materials, food, clothes, and hygiene products. Recently, after receiving some of these items, a new inmate asked Wardlow what he owed him. "I told him to remember how guys helped him when he saw someone else new," Wardlow said. "Pay it forward, as the saying goes." Sending gift...

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog