200th death row exoneration shows capital punishment is ‘broken’

4WardEverUK • 10 July 2024

first published: 6 July 2024

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The US has seen the 200th individual on death row exonerated since 1973. The exoneration earlier this week has led to further calls from a Catholic organisation that advocates against the death penalty for an end to the “broken system of capital punishment” to ensure innocent people aren’t executed in the future.

“Because of the tireless efforts of faithful advocates and committed lawyers, 200 people have now been saved from the threat of execution after being sentenced to death,” Krisanne Valliancourt Murphy, the executive director of Catholic Mobilising Network, said in a 3 July statement.

“And while we praise God that these lives have been spared, we also remember the many individuals – both innocent and guilty – who did not, and will not receive the same grace, whose lives are discarded by a system determined to throw them away,” Valliancourt Murphy continued.

Larry Roberts was exonerated on 1 July after he was wrongfully convicted in the 1983 murder of a fellow prisoner and a prison guard at the California Medical Center in Vacaville, California. After 41 years, the California Attorney General’s office has has said it will not retry him after a US district judge granted Roberts a new trial, meaning he is in effect cleared of all charges and an innocent man.

Roberts’ exoneration is the third of 2024.

Kerry Max Cook was exonerated in June for the 1977 murder of Linda Jo Edwards, who was found dead in her apartment in Tyler, Texas. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals declared Cook innocent of the crime for which he has spent nearly 20 years on death row.

In February, meanwhile, Daniel Gwynn had charges of first-degree murder, arson and aggravated assault that resulted in a death sentence dismissed. His sentence was related to the 1994 death of Marsha Smith, who was killed in a fire in west Philadelphia.

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