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Report: 4.1 Percent of Death Row Inmates Are Innocent

Raishad Hardnett |
April 28, 2014 | 6:09 p.m. PDT

Executive Producer

At least 4.1 percent of death row inmates in the U.S. are innocent, according to a new report that "conservatively" analyzes how often states convict people of crimes they never committed (Image via Wikipedia)
At least 4.1 percent of death row inmates in the U.S. are innocent, according to a new report that "conservatively" analyzes how often states convict people of crimes they never committed (Image via Wikipedia)
At least 4.1 percent of death row inmates in the U.S. are innocent, according to a new report that "conservatively" analyzes how often states convict people of crimes they never committed.

The study, conducted by legal experts from Michigan and Pennsylvania, is the first major analysis of its kind. Researchers used U.S. death row records between the years of 1973 and 2004; of the near 7500 defendants that were sentenced to death, 1.6 percent had been exonerated, 12 percent had been executive and 46 percent were still on death row.

“Most death-sentenced defendants are removed from death row and re-sentenced to life imprisonment, after which the likelihood of exoneration drops sharply,” the authors found. Therefore, they say the 4.1 percent estimate “is a conservative estimate of the proportion of false conviction among death sentences in the United States."

Read more at the Christian Science Monitor. Follow Executive Producer Raishad Hardnett on Twitter



 

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