Ruben Cantu: Wrongful Conviction Of Murder

Ruben Cantu. One of the many people sentenced to death after the wrongful conviction of murder. He was 17 at the time of his conviction and was executed in 1993 at 26 years old. About 12 years after his death, investigations show that he likely didn’t commit the murder. The one eyewitness withdrew his testimony, and Cantu’s co-defendant later admitted he allowed his friend to be falsely accused. He says Cantu wasn’t even there the night of the murder. After reading through more stories similar to his I found a quote that embodies those stories perfectly. The quote is by Anton Chekhov and it says ““The State is not God. It has not the right to take away what it cannot restore when it wants to.” Restoring the lives of innocent people is impossible …show more content…
Studies I found on ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) by a Columbia University professor who looked into thousands of capital crimes cases from 1973 to 1995 found that “An astonishing 82 percent of death row inmates did not deserve to receive death row.” That doesn’t mean they deserve to be out of jail it just means their sentencing was wrong and was longer than it should have been. Those are only the people that got wrong sentencing, there are others who have been proven innocent after they had already been executed, cases like Ruben’s. While there are other’s who because of misidentification, false identification, or misplaced evidence were put on death row for years before finally being proven innocent. Alfred Brown was released from jail June 8, 2015, after being on death row for the murder of police officer and office clerk during a robbery since 2005. All charges were dismissed once evidence previously misplaced by prosecutors was found supporting Brown’s alibi. He had been talking to his girlfriend on the phone at the time of the robbery. This isn’t a rare occurrence either, there are countless convictions who are now being proven innocent after years on death