How many death row inmates have been found innocent?
• Over 123 people have been found innocent of the crime they were sentenced to death for. • False confessions, mistaken eyewitness accounts, incompetent counsel and jailhouse snitches are often the cause of an innocent person’s conviction. While DNA has saved many innocent lives, most crimes do not have DNA that can be tested. • New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Republican, has reiterated his opposition to capital punishment. Bloomberg noted, “The death penalty I’ve always had a problem with, because too many times in the past you’ve seen innocent people incarcerated and, tragically, every once in a while they’ve been executed. And until you can show me that the process never would ever convict somebody that later on we find out was innocent of a crime, murder is murder no matter who does it, and I think we as a society can afford to incarcerate people.” (The New York Times, July 31, 2003). • In New York, the five men convicted in the Central Park Jogger rape case were found inn
