The death penalty in the United States is a legal penalty in most states. But it is not uncommon for innocent convicts to be subjected to capital punishment.
1. Sacco and Vanzetti
Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were Italian immigrants who were shot in 1927 in Massachusetts.
The men were arrested in 1920 on suspicion of a robbery in which two people were killed. The trial against Sacco and Bartolomeo is believed to have been biased and unprofessional. The anarchist political convictions of the defendants certainly played a role in the death sentence. The story is further complicated by the fact that another person confessed to committing the crime accused by Sacco and Bartolomeo. Historians are still debating whether the men were actually guilty or were victims of prejudice and wrongly convicted.
2. George Stinney
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George Stinney, a black teenager, once spoke to two white girls about his age.
Then he did not yet know that this conversation would be fatal for him: soon both girls were killed and raped, and suspicion immediately fell on George. Nothing short of this minor event tied Stinney to the crime, nevertheless he was found guilty and sentenced to death in 1944. The jury consisted of only white people, who took one day to pronounce the death sentence on a fourteen-year-old boy. They did not wait for the execution either - George Stinney was executed with the help of the electric chair just three months after the trial. Decades later, in 2013, a local historian insisted on reopening the case. George Stinney was posthumously rehabilitated because he confessed under physical pressure and did not have a reliable lawyer.
3. Boys from Scottsboro
Another case in which race played a decisive role in the sentencing was the so-called "Scottsboro Boys" case.
In 1931, an all-white jury found nine black boys guilty of raping a white woman. Eight boys were sentenced to death. The ninth was only 12 years old, so he managed to avoid the most severe punishment. As in the case of George Stinney, it took the jury only one day to pass the death sentence. However, the "Scottsboro Boys" were much more fortunate than George Stinney - their verdict provoked numerous protests across the country and was overturned by the Supreme Court. The death sentence was commuted to lengthy prison terms. In 2013, Alabama posthumously rehabilitated the "Scottsboro Boys".
4. Caryl Chessman
Caryl Chessman also didn't need to kill anyone to be sentenced to death.
In 1948, he was found guilty of robbery, kidnapping and rape. While on death row, Chessman wrote several books in which he claimed his innocence. Many famous people stood up for Chessman, including Eleanor Roosevelt, Ray Bradbury and Robert Frost. On May 2, 1960, Chessman was sent to the gas chamber. At the same time, the judge's secretary called to say that Chessman was given another reprieve of execution, but by the time the news reached the prison authorities, Chessman was already dead.
5. Cameron Todd Willingham
On December 23, 1991, a fire broke out in the house of Cameron Todd Willingham.
Willingham managed to get out, but his three young daughters were killed. Four days later, the fire was officially declared arson, and Cameron Todd Willingham was arrested. He was offered a deal under the terms of which he could avoid the death penalty if he pleaded guilty. However, Willingham refused to do so and was sentenced to death. Despite the fact that from the very beginning there were many doubts about the expert's conclusion that the fire was arson, Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in 2004. In 2009, a special commission concluded that the expert did not have sufficient grounds to conclude that arson was the cause of the fire.