10 People Who Got the Death Penalty Before Being Found Innocent

10 People Who Got the Death Penalty and Were Later Found to Be Innocent

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’ll be looking at the most egregious miscarriages of justice, in which individuals were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death, only to later be exonerated.

Curtis Flowers

On July 16th 1996, four people were found dead inside a furniture store in Winona, Mississippi. The police quickly focused on Curtis Flowers, an African-American man who had been fired from the store about two weeks earlier. Flowers was tried six times for these murders, four of which ended in him being convicted and sentenced to death. The case eventually reached the Supreme Court, which overturned the conviction in 2019. The Court found that District Attorney Doug Evans had largely excluded black people from the jury in all six trials. With new evidence and alternative suspects suggesting Flowers’ innocence, the state decided to drop all charges against him. By this point, he had already spent over 20 years sitting on death row.

Glenn Ford

When Isadore Rozeman was killed in his Shreveport, Louisiana jewelry store on November 5th 1983, Glenn Ford, Rozeman’s handyman, was arrested. The physical evidence linking Ford to the murder was minimal; police had found gunshot residue on his hand and he was apparently seen with certain items stolen from the crime scene. Nonetheless, prosecutors exploited his defense lawyers’ inexperience, and managed to secure a conviction and death sentence. It wasn’t until 2014, after information emerged about the real killer that Ford’s conviction was overturned and he was released. Sadly, his freedom didn’t last long. Ford was diagnosed with lung cancer shortly after his release, and he passed away in 2015, never receiving compensation for his wrongful conviction.

Anthony Porter

In 1983, Anthony Porter was convicted and sentenced to death for a double murder in Chicago, Illinois. In 1998, he was just 48 hours away from being executed when a judge decided to grant him a stay. The following year, Porter was exonerated after a team of Northwestern University professors and students presented new evidence, including a recording of Alstory Simon confessing to the murders. Simon was subsequently sentenced to prison, but was also exonerated after he recanted his confession, claiming he was tricked by the Northwestern team. Despite spending 17 years on death row, Porter was denied compensation, and he passed away in 2021. However, his case played a major role in the abolition of the death penalty in Illinois.

Walter McMillian

In the case of Walter McMillian, it was ‘guilty until proven innocent’. An African-American man, McMillian was arrested in June 1987 for the murder of a white lady in Monroeville, Alabama. He was sent straight to death row, where he sat for 15 months, before even facing a trial. Despite numerous witnesses confirming he was with his family at the time of the crime and no incriminating physical evidence, McMillian was found guilty by a jury. Although they recommended a life sentence, the judge imposed the death penalty instead. It was later revealed that the police had coerced witnesses to give false testimony and prosecutors had withheld potentially exculpatory evidence. After six years on death row, McMillian’s conviction was overturned in 1993.

Ron Keine

Back in 1974, Ron Keine was traveling with his motorcycle club across the U.S. when Richard Velten, a college student, was murdered in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Despite Keine and his biker gang being in Los Angeles at the time, authorities still charged them with the crime. They were convicted after Judith Weyer, a local motel maid, testified to witnessing the murder. However, an investigation by The Detroit News found that Weyer had lied on the stand. Even after she recanted her testimony, the men were denied a new trial. It wasn’t until September 1975, when a drifter named Kerry Rodney Lee confessed to the murder, and ballistics linked his gun to the crime scene, that the charges were dropped and they were released.

Sabrina Butler

On April 11th 1989, Sabrina Butler experienced every mother’s worst nightmare: the sudden death of her infant son. After unsuccessfully attempting to resuscitate him at home, she rushed him to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. The very next day, while still grieving, Butler was arrested and accused of murdering her own child. Her attempts to revive him had inadvertently caused internal injuries, but her lawyers failed to highlight this crucial detail during the trial and called no witnesses to testify on her behalf. As a result, she was convicted and sentenced to death, becoming the only woman on Mississippi’s death row. This conviction was later overturned, and a second trial, which featured more witnesses and evidence supporting her innocence, ended in an acquittal.

Gary Drinkard

In September 1993, Gary Drinkard was arrested for the murder of Dalton Pace, an automotive junk dealer in Decatur, Alabama. The main evidence against him was the testimony of his half-sister and her partner, who implicated Drinkard in exchange for having their unrelated robbery charges dropped. Due to the ineffective legal counsel he received, Drinkard was convicted of felony murder and sentenced to death. After nearly six years on death row, he was granted a new trial. This time, his defense presented a witness who confirmed Drinkard was home at the time of the murder and evidence showing he had a debilitating back injury, which largely limited his movement. The jury took only one hour to find him not guilty.

Randall Dale Adams

The 1988 documentary “The Thin Blue Line” revolves around Randall Dale Adams, a man sentenced to death for the 1976 murder of Texas police officer Robert Wood. Adams consistently maintained his innocence, even after his sentence was commuted to life in prison. He argued that Wood was actually killed by David Ray Harris, who had given him a ride on the day of the murder. In the documentary, Harris admitted that Adams had nothing to do with the crime. This admission, coupled with evidence of prosecutorial misconduct, led to Adams’ conviction being overturned. Although he was granted a new trial, the district attorney’s office chose not to prosecute the case again, and Adams was released. He received no compensation from the state of Texas.

Ricky Jackson, Wiley Bridgeman & Kwame Ajamu

On May 19th 1975, Harold Franks, a money order collector, was fatally shot outside a grocery store in Cleveland, Ohio. Based on the supposed eyewitness testimony of Eddie Vernon, police arrested Ricky Jackson, and brothers Wiley Bridgeman and Kwame Ajamu, then known as Ronnie Bridgeman. Vernon’s testimony was the only evidence against them, yet it resulted in them being sentenced to death. Ajamu was paroled in 2003, but his name wasn’t cleared until 2014, when Vernon recanted his testimony, claiming he had been pressured by the police to testify. Jackson and Bridgeman were also released and fully exonerated. For their wrongful imprisonment, all three men received millions of dollars in compensation from the state of Ohio.

Ray Krone

Ray Krone was tried twice for the 1991 murder of Kim Ancona, a bartender in Phoenix, Arizona. During his first trial in 1992, the prosecution’s case relied on an expert witness who claimed Krone’s teeth matched the bite marks found on Ancona’s body. He was ultimately convicted and sentenced to death. The case was retried in 1996, and although he was found guilty again, his sentence was reduced to life in prison. Krone’s fate took a turn with the advancement of DNA technology. In 2002, DNA analysis implicated Kenneth Phillips, a sex offender who lived close to the bar at the time of the murder. Krone was subsequently released and has since become a strong advocate for getting rid of the death penalty.


While it is clearly a sensitive topic, we’d like to know your thoughts on whether these examples make a case for abolishing the death penalty. Share them respectfully in the comments below.