Is there a more tragic story than an innocent person going to prison? Tragic, and powerful. That’s why The Shawshank Redemption is one of the most beloved movies of our time. That is why we’ve all heard of this quote from an esoteric 18th-century English guy, William Blackstone: “It is better that ten guilty people escape than that one innocent suffer.” And why real-life stories of the exonerated always make headlines. Here’s the first line of a Washington Post story about Glenn Ford, who was exonerated last month:
“When I left my son’s were babies” Louisiana’s longest-serving death row inmate told reporters after his release late Tuesday. “Now they’re grown men with babies.”
It hits you in the gut. You first think about this particular person, this man who lost his family, who spent decades in some awful cell believing he was going to be electrocuted. And then you think that other frightening thought, …show more content…
Survival curves for diabetics on some new drug treatment, say, can then be compared with those on no treatment.In this study, the “disease” is being on death row, the “outcome” is exoneration, and the “treatment” is being moved to life in prison. (Just as a medical treatment is likely to lower a diabetic’s risk of death, being moved to life in prison lowers the risk of exoneration.) Using this mathematical approach, the researchers were able to calculate the cumulative risk of exoneration for the “untreated” population — that is, people who were never removed from death row. Because these cases get the most intense scrutiny, the researchers say, this is the closest we can get to the true rate of death-row false convictions. And that rate is 4.1
“When I left my son’s were babies” Louisiana’s longest-serving death row inmate told reporters after his release late Tuesday. “Now they’re grown men with babies.”
It hits you in the gut. You first think about this particular person, this man who lost his family, who spent decades in some awful cell believing he was going to be electrocuted. And then you think that other frightening thought, …show more content…
Survival curves for diabetics on some new drug treatment, say, can then be compared with those on no treatment.In this study, the “disease” is being on death row, the “outcome” is exoneration, and the “treatment” is being moved to life in prison. (Just as a medical treatment is likely to lower a diabetic’s risk of death, being moved to life in prison lowers the risk of exoneration.) Using this mathematical approach, the researchers were able to calculate the cumulative risk of exoneration for the “untreated” population — that is, people who were never removed from death row. Because these cases get the most intense scrutiny, the researchers say, this is the closest we can get to the true rate of death-row false convictions. And that rate is 4.1