Post by MXB on Jun 12, 2006 10:05:04 GMT -5
QUOTES FROM DEATH PENALTY EXONEREES
people.freenet.de/dpinfo/exonerees.htm
«I came 72 hours from being executed. At that point, you better make peace with yourself.»
-- Randall Dale Adams, who spent 12 years on Texas' death row before another man was convicted of the murder he was accused of; in an 1991 interview with the Chicago Tribune, quoted in The Beaumont Enterprise, 6/28/2004.
«As long as there's the possibility -- no matter how remote -- that an innocent person could be killed, nobody should be for the death penalty.» «We should not be in the business of executing people. We perpetuate vengeance by breaking the very same rule we set in the 1st place: It is wrong to murder people.»
-- Kirk Bloodsworth, who was twice convicted of rape and murder and spent 9 years in prison (2 of them on death row), before DNA evidence exonerated him in 1993; (2) Pioneer Press, 9/27/2004.
«I don't know how anybody can get up Sunday morning and go to church and call themselves Christians.»
-- Clarence Brandley, who spent nearly a decade on death row for a 1981 Conroe murder he did not commit and who came within 6 days of execution before he was eventually freed.
«I don't think there's any words in the English language to explain what it's--what it's like to--to sit on Texas death row and your thoughts are laying on that gurney, convicted but innocent and being put to death.»
-- Kerry Max Cook, twice convicted and sentenced to death for the 1977 rape murder of an 21-year-old secretary in Tyler, TX; released after 22 years (Remark: Cook was not formally exonerated; DNA tests later confirmed that semen found on the victim's clothes was not his), NBC, 9/3/2000.
«If people were perfect, the death penalty would be a good thing. But if people were perfect, we wouldn't kill, so there would be no need for it.» «I know my path in life leads to straighten out this judicial system, I have to. I am who I am today because of what they did to me.» «I prayed in the morning I would be able to sleep at night, I prayed at night I would be able to wake up in the morning.»
-- Rolando Cruz, wrongfully convicted of the 1983 murder of a 10-year-old girl, exonderated by DNA evidence in 1995, (1) Cornell Chronicle, 3/5/1998, (2) & (3) about his ordeal on death row, CNN, 11/15/1998.
« I just haven't got any anger toward them. God just took it all away.»
-- Charles Fain, who spent 18 years in solitary confinement on Idaho's death row before he was found innocent through DNA testing.
«I kept thinking people will see that it's obvious that the police were perjuring themselves in my case. It was demonstrable [that] they were lying. I kept saying surely justice will prevail. The jury came back in three hours with a guilty verdict.»
-- Gary Gauger, an Illinois farmer who sat on death row in Illinois for six months after being convicted of murdering his parents in 1993. In 1996, it was discovered that Gauger's parents had been murdered by two members of a Milwaukee motorcycle gang; Star Tribune, 2/5/2004.
«I'm going home, where I should have been all along.» «I'm a more mature person, but I'm also a sadder person. My eyes were opened to things that I didn't even dream existed. ... There's no way to get out of prison and go on with your life and ignore what we've seen.» «There's no other word than to say that it's hell. That sums it up.» «I tend to believe that we do have some more innocent people that are on death row and I personally would like to see the moratorium pass in order to save their lives.» «People say I'm free and the system works. It didn't work nine years ago when it sent an innocent man to prison or 19 years ago when it sent Darryl Hunt to prison.»
-- Alan Gell, who spent 9 years in prison, half of them on death row, for a murder he did not commit, (1) after his acquittal, (2) The Courier Tribune, 4/27/2004, (3) NBC17 News, 5/12/2004; (4) News 14 Carolina, 5/18/2004; (5) The Kinston Free Press, 6/30/2004.
«Even if there's just one person on death row that's innocent, just one, that should be enough to take a look at the system ... It's on everybody's hands if we execute somebody who's innocent.» «The system didn't free me. God did. God manifested the truth.»
-- Darryl Eugene Hunt, twice convicted of a 1984 murder and sentenced to life, exonerated in February 2004 when another man cofessed to the murder, (1) The Courier-Tribune, 4/27/2004, (2) NBC17 News, 5/12/2004.
«I want people to wake up and realize that what happened to me can happen to them. I feel that Governor Ryan's moratorium in Illinois was a good first step, but that's all it was. We've got plenty of more steps to go to correct all the wrongs.» «It's not about whether you are innocent or guilty. It's about whether or not you can prove you're innocent. If you can't prove you're innocent, then you're considered guilty. It's been flipped: Now it's guilty until proven innocent.»
-- Ronald Jones, who was convicted of the 1989 rape murder of a Chicago woman before DNA tests cleared him.
«I don’t know how it’s going to go. But I want to sit on a rocking chair someday and tell my grandkids that I helped stop the death penalty.» «I had a Bible I kept under my bed and read a little bit every day. I went through it three and a half times. People ask how God could leave me in prison for 10 years. Maybe it was in preparation for the next 10 years. My family and friends took on the justice system and won. The death penalty doesn't need your assent to continue on its merry way - it needs your indifference.» «It's difficult to describe what it is like to serve time on death row knowing you are innocent. All you know is that what seems like an awful nightmare is now reality, a reality beyond comprehension.»
-- Ray Krone, who was twice convicted of a murder he did not commit and spent 10 years in prison (2 of them on death row) before DNA evidence exonerated him in 2002; (2) Clarion Herald, 9/10/2003; (3) Witness to Innocence, 2/20/2006.
«I thought there was our case and maybe a few others like it. But last fall I went to a conference at Northwestern University in Illinois and found 30 others who were innocent and got released. I was shocked! And there are others. Who knows how many didn't get out because they couldn't get the legal help or had no outside support?»
-- Wilbert Lee, who spent 12 years on death row for a double murder he did not commit. He was pardoned by Florida's governor after another man confessed to the killings, The Militant, 3/29/1999.
«I left my anger in prison, but now I fight for this cause, to abolish the death penalty. I can't cry. I have to tell people the facts with humor and sad stories, without feeling hateful.» «I spent 17 years, eight months and one day on death row. I was not saved by the system. I was saved in spite of the system.» «The death penalty nearly killed me, but it also brings tremendous suffering to the family of the death row inmate. I can honestly say that my mother and five aunts were mentally tortured for seventeen years, eight months and one day while I was on death row.»
-- Juan Roberto Melendez, who spent more than 17 years on Florida's death row, before he was exonerated and freed in January 2002, (1) Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 2/4/2004; (2) Record-Journal, 4/15/2004.
«It’s strange when they near your cell. You lose all your strength and you are like this. You lose all your strength as if a rope is dragging it out of you. Then the footsteps stop in front of another solitary confinement cell and when you hear the sound of the key turning you feel relieved.»
-- Sakae Menda, who spent 34 years on Japan's death row before he was found innocent and exonerated, ABC Online, 3/16/2004.
«I promised a lot of the guys that I wouldn't forget about them, that I would come out and be their voice.»
-- William Nieves, acquitted and released after spending 6 years innocent on Pennsylvania's death row.
«It was a traumatic feeling. A sigh of relief. A lot of pressure that was lifted from me, that I didn't realize so much pressure was on me. I was hopeful that I'd get there, but I never entertained the thought of getting there.»
-- Leroy Orange, one of four death row inmates pardoned by outgoing Illinois Governor George Ryan, CNN, 1/12/2003.
«I am bitter, and I will be until the day I die. But it's a bitterness I control. It's like a scar, a burn. It's going to be there.» «I think they're a bunch of ignorant, backwoods, redneck clowns bent on vengeance.»
-- Freddie Pitts, Wilbert Lee's alleged co-defendant (see above), who was also sentenced to death and pardoned, CNN, 7/13/1998; (2) asked about his opinion of state legislators who want to speed up the pace of executions.
«From the moment you are in that cell, when they tell you you’re going ot be electrocuted, you contemplate it all the time. It never leaves your mind, and they never let it leave your mind.»
-- Jay C. Smith, who received 3 death sentences for a triple murder he did not commit, acquitted after spending 6 years on Pennsylvania's death row.
«Whether a death sentence is carried out in six minutes, six weeks or six years, the person set for death begins to suffer the most cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment. Death row is segregated from the rest of the general inmate prison population. You’re warehoused for death, treated like contaminated meat to be disposed of. You sit there and await death, and the pain you know will come to you one day
-- Darby Tillis, wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death for the 1977 murder and armed robbery of the owner and an employee of a hotdog stand on the north side of Chicago, ICADP.org.
«Despite the 22 years that the commonwealth did its best to kill me, I used the opportunity to become a good man. I wish you well.»
-- Nicholas Yarris, who spent more than 2 decades on Pennsylvania's death row, before DNA evidence exonerated him in 2003.
people.freenet.de/dpinfo/exonerees.htm
«I came 72 hours from being executed. At that point, you better make peace with yourself.»
-- Randall Dale Adams, who spent 12 years on Texas' death row before another man was convicted of the murder he was accused of; in an 1991 interview with the Chicago Tribune, quoted in The Beaumont Enterprise, 6/28/2004.
«As long as there's the possibility -- no matter how remote -- that an innocent person could be killed, nobody should be for the death penalty.» «We should not be in the business of executing people. We perpetuate vengeance by breaking the very same rule we set in the 1st place: It is wrong to murder people.»
-- Kirk Bloodsworth, who was twice convicted of rape and murder and spent 9 years in prison (2 of them on death row), before DNA evidence exonerated him in 1993; (2) Pioneer Press, 9/27/2004.
«I don't know how anybody can get up Sunday morning and go to church and call themselves Christians.»
-- Clarence Brandley, who spent nearly a decade on death row for a 1981 Conroe murder he did not commit and who came within 6 days of execution before he was eventually freed.
«I don't think there's any words in the English language to explain what it's--what it's like to--to sit on Texas death row and your thoughts are laying on that gurney, convicted but innocent and being put to death.»
-- Kerry Max Cook, twice convicted and sentenced to death for the 1977 rape murder of an 21-year-old secretary in Tyler, TX; released after 22 years (Remark: Cook was not formally exonerated; DNA tests later confirmed that semen found on the victim's clothes was not his), NBC, 9/3/2000.
«If people were perfect, the death penalty would be a good thing. But if people were perfect, we wouldn't kill, so there would be no need for it.» «I know my path in life leads to straighten out this judicial system, I have to. I am who I am today because of what they did to me.» «I prayed in the morning I would be able to sleep at night, I prayed at night I would be able to wake up in the morning.»
-- Rolando Cruz, wrongfully convicted of the 1983 murder of a 10-year-old girl, exonderated by DNA evidence in 1995, (1) Cornell Chronicle, 3/5/1998, (2) & (3) about his ordeal on death row, CNN, 11/15/1998.
« I just haven't got any anger toward them. God just took it all away.»
-- Charles Fain, who spent 18 years in solitary confinement on Idaho's death row before he was found innocent through DNA testing.
«I kept thinking people will see that it's obvious that the police were perjuring themselves in my case. It was demonstrable [that] they were lying. I kept saying surely justice will prevail. The jury came back in three hours with a guilty verdict.»
-- Gary Gauger, an Illinois farmer who sat on death row in Illinois for six months after being convicted of murdering his parents in 1993. In 1996, it was discovered that Gauger's parents had been murdered by two members of a Milwaukee motorcycle gang; Star Tribune, 2/5/2004.
«I'm going home, where I should have been all along.» «I'm a more mature person, but I'm also a sadder person. My eyes were opened to things that I didn't even dream existed. ... There's no way to get out of prison and go on with your life and ignore what we've seen.» «There's no other word than to say that it's hell. That sums it up.» «I tend to believe that we do have some more innocent people that are on death row and I personally would like to see the moratorium pass in order to save their lives.» «People say I'm free and the system works. It didn't work nine years ago when it sent an innocent man to prison or 19 years ago when it sent Darryl Hunt to prison.»
-- Alan Gell, who spent 9 years in prison, half of them on death row, for a murder he did not commit, (1) after his acquittal, (2) The Courier Tribune, 4/27/2004, (3) NBC17 News, 5/12/2004; (4) News 14 Carolina, 5/18/2004; (5) The Kinston Free Press, 6/30/2004.
«Even if there's just one person on death row that's innocent, just one, that should be enough to take a look at the system ... It's on everybody's hands if we execute somebody who's innocent.» «The system didn't free me. God did. God manifested the truth.»
-- Darryl Eugene Hunt, twice convicted of a 1984 murder and sentenced to life, exonerated in February 2004 when another man cofessed to the murder, (1) The Courier-Tribune, 4/27/2004, (2) NBC17 News, 5/12/2004.
«I want people to wake up and realize that what happened to me can happen to them. I feel that Governor Ryan's moratorium in Illinois was a good first step, but that's all it was. We've got plenty of more steps to go to correct all the wrongs.» «It's not about whether you are innocent or guilty. It's about whether or not you can prove you're innocent. If you can't prove you're innocent, then you're considered guilty. It's been flipped: Now it's guilty until proven innocent.»
-- Ronald Jones, who was convicted of the 1989 rape murder of a Chicago woman before DNA tests cleared him.
«I don’t know how it’s going to go. But I want to sit on a rocking chair someday and tell my grandkids that I helped stop the death penalty.» «I had a Bible I kept under my bed and read a little bit every day. I went through it three and a half times. People ask how God could leave me in prison for 10 years. Maybe it was in preparation for the next 10 years. My family and friends took on the justice system and won. The death penalty doesn't need your assent to continue on its merry way - it needs your indifference.» «It's difficult to describe what it is like to serve time on death row knowing you are innocent. All you know is that what seems like an awful nightmare is now reality, a reality beyond comprehension.»
-- Ray Krone, who was twice convicted of a murder he did not commit and spent 10 years in prison (2 of them on death row) before DNA evidence exonerated him in 2002; (2) Clarion Herald, 9/10/2003; (3) Witness to Innocence, 2/20/2006.
«I thought there was our case and maybe a few others like it. But last fall I went to a conference at Northwestern University in Illinois and found 30 others who were innocent and got released. I was shocked! And there are others. Who knows how many didn't get out because they couldn't get the legal help or had no outside support?»
-- Wilbert Lee, who spent 12 years on death row for a double murder he did not commit. He was pardoned by Florida's governor after another man confessed to the killings, The Militant, 3/29/1999.
«I left my anger in prison, but now I fight for this cause, to abolish the death penalty. I can't cry. I have to tell people the facts with humor and sad stories, without feeling hateful.» «I spent 17 years, eight months and one day on death row. I was not saved by the system. I was saved in spite of the system.» «The death penalty nearly killed me, but it also brings tremendous suffering to the family of the death row inmate. I can honestly say that my mother and five aunts were mentally tortured for seventeen years, eight months and one day while I was on death row.»
-- Juan Roberto Melendez, who spent more than 17 years on Florida's death row, before he was exonerated and freed in January 2002, (1) Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 2/4/2004; (2) Record-Journal, 4/15/2004.
«It’s strange when they near your cell. You lose all your strength and you are like this. You lose all your strength as if a rope is dragging it out of you. Then the footsteps stop in front of another solitary confinement cell and when you hear the sound of the key turning you feel relieved.»
-- Sakae Menda, who spent 34 years on Japan's death row before he was found innocent and exonerated, ABC Online, 3/16/2004.
«I promised a lot of the guys that I wouldn't forget about them, that I would come out and be their voice.»
-- William Nieves, acquitted and released after spending 6 years innocent on Pennsylvania's death row.
«It was a traumatic feeling. A sigh of relief. A lot of pressure that was lifted from me, that I didn't realize so much pressure was on me. I was hopeful that I'd get there, but I never entertained the thought of getting there.»
-- Leroy Orange, one of four death row inmates pardoned by outgoing Illinois Governor George Ryan, CNN, 1/12/2003.
«I am bitter, and I will be until the day I die. But it's a bitterness I control. It's like a scar, a burn. It's going to be there.» «I think they're a bunch of ignorant, backwoods, redneck clowns bent on vengeance.»
-- Freddie Pitts, Wilbert Lee's alleged co-defendant (see above), who was also sentenced to death and pardoned, CNN, 7/13/1998; (2) asked about his opinion of state legislators who want to speed up the pace of executions.
«From the moment you are in that cell, when they tell you you’re going ot be electrocuted, you contemplate it all the time. It never leaves your mind, and they never let it leave your mind.»
-- Jay C. Smith, who received 3 death sentences for a triple murder he did not commit, acquitted after spending 6 years on Pennsylvania's death row.
«Whether a death sentence is carried out in six minutes, six weeks or six years, the person set for death begins to suffer the most cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment. Death row is segregated from the rest of the general inmate prison population. You’re warehoused for death, treated like contaminated meat to be disposed of. You sit there and await death, and the pain you know will come to you one day
-- Darby Tillis, wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death for the 1977 murder and armed robbery of the owner and an employee of a hotdog stand on the north side of Chicago, ICADP.org.
«Despite the 22 years that the commonwealth did its best to kill me, I used the opportunity to become a good man. I wish you well.»
-- Nicholas Yarris, who spent more than 2 decades on Pennsylvania's death row, before DNA evidence exonerated him in 2003.