Tag: inmate
More Than 4 Percent Of Death Row Inmates Wrongly Convicted, Study Says

More Than 4 Percent Of Death Row Inmates Wrongly Convicted, Study Says

By Monte Morin, Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — A new study argues that more than 4 percent of all defendants who have been sentenced to death — and who remain under threat of execution — are probably innocent.

In a paper published this week in the journal PNAS, a team of researchers statistically examined the cases of 7,482 death row convictions from 1973 to 2004.

Using a so-called survival analysis mathematical model, study authors estimated that if all death-sentence defendants remained under sentence of death indefinitely, at least 4.1 percent would be exonerated.

By the same token, authors concluded that although the number of innocent people who have been executed was “comparatively low,” the percentage of innocent people who have had their death sentences commuted to life is even greater.

“The great majority of innocent defendants who are convicted of capital murder in the United States are neither executed nor exonerated,” Samuel Gross, a law professor at the University of Michigan Law School, wrote with his colleagues Monday. “They are sentenced, or resentenced to prison for life, and then forgotten.”

Gross, whose colleagues included biostatisticians from the American College of Radiology and the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, said the differing rates had to do with the unique workings of the U.S. justice system.

Specifically, the cases of defendants actively awaiting execution on death row receive the most intense scrutiny of all criminal convictions. Prisoners who have had their sentences reduced to life in prison receive much less scrutiny, authors argued.

“The threat of execution is the engine that drives the process of exonerating innocent death row prisoners, and it is likely that this process becomes more painstaking as inmates approach their execution dates,” authors wrote.

“Courts and executive officials explicitly recognize that it is appropriate to take the possibility of innocence into account in deciding whether to reverse a conviction for procedural error or commute a death sentence to life imprisonment. … As a result, those who are resentenced to punishments less than death are more likely to be innocent than those who remain on death row.”

In the time period examined, authors wrote that 943 people had been executed, or roughly 13 percent of the 7,482 death sentences imposed.

By contrast, 117, or roughly 2 percent, were exonerated. An additional 2,675, or roughly 36 percent of the total, had their sentences commuted. (The number of people who died on death row but who were not executed was 298, or 4 percent.)

Study authors wrote that the most charged question regarding capital punishment was how many innocent defendants have been executed.

“We cannot estimate that number directly but we believe it is comparatively low,” authors wrote. “If the rate were the same as our estimate for false death sentences, the number of innocents executed in the United States in the past 35 years would be more than 50. We do not believe this has happened.

“Our data and the experience of practitioners in the field both indicate that the criminal justice system goes to far greater lengths to avoid executing innocent defendants than to prevent them from remaining in prison indefinitely.”

Casey Konstantín via Flickr.com

NATO Kills Guantanamo Detainee Who Returned To Terrorism

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — NATO and Afghan forces killed a former Guantanamo detainee who had become a key Al-Qaida affiliate after returning to Afghanistan, officials said Saturday.

Sabar Lal Melma, who was released from Guantanamo in 2007 after five years of detention, had been organizing attacks in eastern Kunar province and funding insurgent operations, NATO spokesman Capt. Justin Brockhoff said.

A NATO statement described Melma as a “key affiliate of the Al-Qaida network” who was in contact with senior Al-Qaida members in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Troops surrounded Melma’s house in Jalalabad city on Friday night and shot him dead when he emerged from the building holding an AK-47 assault rifle. Several other people were detained.

A guard at the house, Mohammad Gul, said a group of American soldiers scaled the walls of the compound around 11 p.m. and stormed the house, shooting Melma in the assault. Three others were detained, Gul said.

Melma had been detained for about five days in August, Gul said.

Melma is not the first former detainee to rejoin the insurgency. In 2009, the Pentagon said 61 detainees, or approximately 11 percent, released from Guantanamo had rejoined the fight. Experts have questioned the validity of that number.

About 520 Guantanamo detainees have been released from custody or transferred to prisons elsewhere in the world.

After the fall of the Taliban, Melma, 49, was given the rank of brigadier general and placed in charge of approximately 600 border security troops in Konar province, according to his military file made public by WikiLeaks.

He was captured in August 2002 while attending a meeting with U.S. military officials in Asadabad and transferred to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay in October that same year. He was suspected of helping carry out rocket attacks against U.S. troops.

While imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. determined he was a “probable facilitator for Al-Qaida members” and was also thought to have links to Pakistan’s intelligence service.

He was sent back to Afghanistan in September 2007.

NATO said in a statement that coalition forces have captured or killed more than 40 Al-Qaida insurgents in eastern Afghanistan this year.

In June 2010, then CIA Director Leon Panetta said only 50 to 100 Al-Qaida operatives continued to operate inside Afghanistan. It’s not clear if Panetta was referring to commanders or foot soldiers.

Associated Press writers Heidi Vogt and Adam Goldman contributed to this report from Kabul.