WASHINGTON: Two US death row inmates have won crucial victories as judges hundreds of miles away from each other threw away their convictions, expressing doubt the US justice system has worked properly in their cases.
Damon Thibodeaux walked free Friday after 15 years on death row in Louisiana after DNA evidence showed he had been wrongfully convicted of the rape and murder of his cousin, authorities said.
At the same time, in Pennsylvania, the death sentence of Terry Williams, who was scheduled to be executed on Wednesday, was overturned because the judge had found that key evidence was not presented at his initial trial.
Thibodeaux, 38, was released from the Louisiana State Penitentiary in the early afternoon, Pam Laborde, communications director for the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections told AFP.
Thibodeaux is the 18th death row inmate released due to DNA evidence in the United States, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). The first was Kirk Bloodsworth, who was freed in 1993 after being wrongfully convicted of the rape and murder of a nine-year-old girl.
"It takes a long time to find these cases," DPIC executive director Richard Dieter told AFP.
"If executions are rushed and accelerated then we are going to miss these cases," he added. "It underscores the fundamental problems that the death penalty could actually kill innocent people."
According to the Innocence Project, Thibodeaux is the 300th person to be exonerated of a wrongful conviction by DNA evidence in the United States.
Thibodeaux started his time on death row on October 24, 1997 for the rape and murder a year earlier of his 14-year-old cousin. His execution date had not been set, according to Laborde.
His conviction and death sentence was based solely on a confession made after a nine-hour interrogation that was proven wrong after an investigation involving DNA, forensic evidence, and a number of interviews, the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement.
Since 2000, six people have been exonerated from Louisiana's death row, compared to three executions, according to the ACLU.
"The people of Louisiana should demand a moratorium on executions until they can be assured there are no more miscarriages of justice like the one that occurred in this case," Denise LeBoeuf, director of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project, who has represented Thibodeaux since 1998, said in a statement.
"Hopefully this case can serve as a model to other district attorneys around the country who are interested in developing conviction integrity units to review old cases," added Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project, in the same statement.
In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Williams won a new hearing after spending 24 long years on death row. He was sentenced to death in 1986 for the murder of two men, who allegedly sexually abused him when he was a child.
More than 150 legal professionals from European Union countries have petitioned on his behalf, asking that his death sentence be commuted to life in prison.
During a hearing, defense attorney Shawn Nolan argued that prosecutor Seth Williams and his assistants have been advocating for the execution of Terry Williams after "hiding critical evidence from jurors."
According to Nolan, the district attorney's own files were replete with evidence from as early as 1984 of "predatory, exploitive and abusive acts" committed against Terry Williams.
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