Talk:List of exonerated death row inmates

Troy Davis
Listing Troy Davis here is inaccurate. He has been executed, but not yet exonerated. I hope he can be listed here some day, but for now I've removed his name. --Aubrig (talk) 12:50, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

New name for the list: Glenn Ford — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.194.230.200 (talk) 08:05, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Reinserted Link
I linked to a news article explaining the specifics of the case. I think this will be helpful in understanding/explaining the situation. I think it should be reinserted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.110.75.80 (talk) 20:30, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

What to include on this list

 * I am considering expanding this list to include people sentenced for stoning who had the sentence reversed. However, a lot of these occur outside a countries legal system or a tribal legal system is the only effective system in place, so these may not belong. Suggestions are welcome. Antonrojo 16:24, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Candidates for inclusion: Amina Lawal, Nigeria 2004


 * That's an interesting idea, but I suspect most people who are looking for this page are seeking a list of individuals who were tried within a legal system. That's the typical meaning of "death row inmates."  In the case you suggested, Amina Lawal, it looks like she might have been formally sentenced by a recognized court of law, though there seems to be some debate about whether she was actually sentenced.  If she was indeed sentenced, then her case might warrant inclusion in the Nigeria section of this article.  Correct2010 (talk) 01:53, 14 November 2009 (UTC)


 * We should include minor details surrounding the exoneration, like what year it occurred. --98.242.235.23 (talk) 13:15, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Ken Richey?
No evidence has come forward to prove his innocence and while the arson evidense has been called into question there are numerous eye witness accounts of his threatening his ex girlfriend before and after the fire and predicting that the building in question would burn on the night of the deadly blaze. More than that HE PLEAD NO CONTEST. He was never exonerated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Smb2a (talk • contribs) 20:26, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Blank numbers
Presumably this is the reason for the confusing label. The reason is laziness/lack of time on my part. The first footnote is a link to the full list and anyone with the time and inclination can fill in the blanks. Antonrojo (talk) 12:16, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
 * There are no more blank numbers. The conviction years and states are on the deathpenalty.info list and I only copied some over. Antonrojo (talk) 13:03, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Deceptive title
The title of this article and its first sentence are inaccurate. The word "exonerated" means found to be innocent after initially being convicted of a crime. The first sentence states that the list is people who were wrongfully convicted. In actuality, the list includes people who don't fit that criteria: those whose pardoned or who had a death sentence commuted. Pardon/commutation is not synonymous with exoneration. It is typically a prerogative of the executive branch of government in which a showing regarding guilt or innocence is not necessarily required. Pardon/commutation can in fact even be granted by an official who believes the condemned to be guilty but who does not approve of the sentence. So it's inappropriate to includes people like the recipients of Saddam Hussein's 2002 blanket pardon. Obviously, Hussein wasn't judging every single Iraqi prisoner to be not guilty. Rather, it was a political act. Therefore, I think either all pardons and commutations should be removed from this list or the title should be changed to something like "List of inmates removed from death row or posthumous pardoned." --JamesAM (talk) 01:51, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

In addition, the Russian case specifically uses the term "Pardoned by Boris Yeltsin", as does the BBC source, when in fact the inmates involved had their sentences commuted to life or 25 years. "Pardon" would indicate a release from prison with no legal entanglements, as if the crime had never happened. Eauhomme (talk) 00:09, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Update on US Exonerations
Nathson Fields was acquitted and exonerated yesterday from Death Row. I updated the article by using this link on the story. --Angeldeb82 (talk) 22:44, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Lena Baker
Should she be added?

NPR article Ikip (talk) 21:29, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Citing the source in the second paragraph
The second paragraph of this article says, "This list is based on information from the Death Penalty Information Center...." I believe this should be removed, for two reasons. First, sources should be mentioned in the citations, unless it is crucial for understanding the rest of the article (which I believe is not the case here). Second, other sources have also been used in updates to this article, and I too would like to use other sources.

Unless someone objects within the next several days, I will remove this sentence. Correct2010 (talk) 02:09, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Presenting the information in a different format
Currently, all the names--particularly in the United States section--are presented somewhat inefficiently. I think it would be much clearer if the information were presented in a table format.

Unless someone objects within the next several days, I will incorporate the information into a table. Correct2010 (talk) 07:26, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Timothy Hennis convicted again
I read that former death row inmate Timothy Hennis was convicted on April 8, 2010, of the same murders. Here's the link. I'll try to reduce the number of exonerated death row inmates by one, for now. --Angeldeb82 (talk) 17:33, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Dead Links to Media content
I'm not a normal editor or wikipedian, but I would think that capturing the content of a TV or newspaper site's story on a page resident in wikipedia would be preferable to ultimately losing the content entirely when the off-wiki page goes down. Even if it's just a basic cut-and-paste, the editing process here would shape the content from a news article into an encyclopedic-style article, and eliminate copyright issues resulting from using the news article as a beginning article.

Tim Cole
I notice that this article is linked to from Tim Cole but that Cole is not included here. Should he be? →Wordbuilder (talk) 14:40, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Never mind. He was not on death row. → Wordbuilder (talk) 04:49, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Pending Texas case(Cameron Todd Willingham)
The Texas case that came up when Rick Perry announced his bid for the presidency, the one with the white trash father who failed to rescue his kids from their burning home, what was the guy's name? He was executed and the case has drawn a lot of interest in particular because of the shitty investigative work involved (i.e. the investigator saying he was a "satanist" because he liked rock music and arsoned the house on purpose as part of a ritual, etc.) that was revealed by outside investigators, after the fact. --76.115.67.114 (talk) 06:28, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

His name is Cameron Todd Willingham,convicted in 1992,and executed in 2004. And his name is on this exonerated list,at this point.but he is not officially exonerated posthumously yet. I remove his name from this article,for now,since Rick Perry is against the fact scientist probed the fire was not arson,shortly before his execution and after his execution.and his name is not on innocence project's exonerated list.I hope this name will be added again.Angelorphan (talk) 09:40, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

US states where convictions were reversed
Print the names of the states where the convictions were overturned. It's shame they are not listed. No one should be trying to hide the trend which is there. Shame on the states for having such constant failure in their legal systems. 101.51.134.59 (talk) 07:31, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

What's up with all the external link within the article?
There are numerous external link within the article itself. Shouldn't these be at the bottom of the page in its own section?

I've always known links in the article to lead to other wikipedia articles no external links. 74.79.13.34 (talk) 22:07, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

What % of dna tests result in exonerations on death row?
This information used to be available online. It seems supressed now. There is nothing more imorrtant than understanding how the system fails. I read that 75% of wrongfull convictions are just by finger pointing. Literally someone just says "take that guy".

But what percent of death row dna tests result in exoneration. By state, these were around 50% and some as high as 75% of all tested individuals were innocent. This is very important data.

Additionally. What percent of cases are dropped because of dna? DNA was the only flashlight to ever appear in the conviction system. We shined that light and saw half the people in the light were innocent.

Thre is no dna test for wiki bans.