[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----MO., OKLA., WYO., WASH., USA

[Rick Halperin]

January 23



MISSOURI:

Missouri Supreme Court To Decide Whether A Part Of The State's Death Penalty 
Law Is Unconstitutional



The Missouri Supreme Court is set to hear arguments Wednesday in a case 
challenging the legality of one aspect of Missouri’s death penalty statute.

Marvin D. Rice, a former deputy sheriff in Dent County, was convicted of 
first-degree murder in 2011 for killing his ex-girlfriend, who was the mother 
of his child, as well as her boyfriend. Jurors were unable to reach a unanimous 
finding on punishment, as 11 of the 12 favored a life sentence, so the judge 
imposed punishment instead and gave Rice the death penalty.

Death penalty opponents argue that the sentencing law is unconstitutional 
because it gives a judge the power to impose capital punishment, even when jury 
can’t agree it’s warranted.

Staci Pratt is executive director of Missourians for Alternatives to the Death 
Penalty, which, along with the ACLU, filed a friend-of-the-court brief.

“We believe strongly that it is not the prerogative of judges to impose a 
capital sentence, and the people who sit on a jury are in the best position to 
determine the nuances and facts of the case,” Pratt said.

The Missouri Attorney General’s office, which is defending the state in the 
case, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that any circumstance that increases the 
penalty for a crime beyond the statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury 
and proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Missouri’s death penalty law requires the 
jury to make such findings, and then it must determine the relative weight of 
aggravating and mitigating circumstances before deciding whether to sentence 
someone to death.

In the past 5 years, only 2 death sentences have been imposed in Missouri — 
both by judges. Before that, Missouri was one of the more prolific states when 
it came to capital punishment sentences; in the 1990s, it averaged about 8 a 
year.

“The U.S. Supreme Court has in fact invalidated death penalty statutes in other 
jurisdictions which empowered judges to impose capital sentences,” Pratt said.

In Rice’s case, the jury found one aggravating circumstance, but the jurors 
couldn't all agree there were enough mitigating circumstances to outweigh the 
aggravating one. That’s when the judge took it upon himself to sentence Rice to 
death.

Another part of the case

Among the legal issues the Missouri Supreme Court will consider is whether the 
judge violated Rice’s constitutional rights to due process and trial by jury. 
Pratt pointed out that in 2017 Alabama barred its judges from imposing death 
sentences when a jury is unable to decide unanimously on punishment.

“It was a measure that was supported among the Republicans,” Pratt said. “They 
did not want electoral pressure to play a role and in a decision in an 
individual case."

“And I think that's what we fear as well," she added. "Judges are elected and 
they sometimes feel the pressure to make a decision that may be seen as tough 
on crime, but they are not in the same position as a jury of peers who are not 
looking for elected office.”

Catholics in and around Kansas City said for the most part they support Pope 
Francis’ declaration Thursday, in which he officially changed Catholic doctrine 
to say the death penalty is wrong in all cases.

This is a departure for the church, which has historically accepted the death 
penalty for the most heinous crimes.

(source: KCUR news)

*******************

Death Row River



The Missouri River stretches across Missouri more or less parallel to 
Interstate 70. Highway and river intersect in many places as both amble across 
the state through a band of 13 or 17 connected counties (depending on how 
tourist guides count them), once called Little Dixie.

Little Dixie really begins in the west at Kansas City, where the Kansas River 
meets the Missouri. From there, it turns east toward St. Louis where the 
Missouri meets the Mississippi.

Early settlers, attracted by cheap land offered in the Land Act of 1820, came 
up from the Upper South (Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia) to make Missouri their 
home. They brought their social customs, agricultural skills, and they brought 
their slaves. Missouri joined the Union as a slave state in 1821.

By 1860 Missouri held 114,900 slaves; they were less than 10 % of the state’s 
population. But the highest slave concentrations were found in Little Dixie. In 
some counties slaves made up a quarter to a third of the population.

Little Dixie also had a disproportionate number of post-Civil War 
racially-motivated lynchings between 1877 and 1950. Many of the victims are 
known by name; some are recorded only as “Unknown Negro.” Missouri itself had 
the second highest number of lynchings outside the Deep South; 60 of record, 
many of no record. Half of all lynchings occurred Little Dixie.

One can see a rough if not direct correlation between high African-American 
populations and the number of post-Civil War lynchings committed against 
blacks.

We are never quite rid of our history, even as it hides from our immediate 
awareness. History shadows us, forms us in ways we do not always recognize, 
dodging between the “then” to the “now.”

This is the “now.” Little Dixie’s high number of slaves, and the equally 
lopsided numbers of lynchings, finds correlation with the top-heavy number of 
death sentences handed out by Missouri courts in Little Dixie counties. The 
history of slavery, lynchings, and the death penalty all related.

A report puts it succinctly:

“… lynching reinforced a narrative of racial difference and a legacy of racial 
inequality that is readily apparent in our criminal justice system today.”

An acquaintance calls the Missouri River corridor “death row.”

Along with higher death penalty sentences, Little Dixie has also produced the 
highest number of Missouri exonerees; persons sentenced to death but who later 
had their convictions overturned. The number is 4, all from Little Dixie.

The reason they were convicted is also the reason for their exoneration. None 
had adequate legal representation. Court appointed defense attorneys are 
required to have 5 years criminal defense experience; that doesn’t always 
happen.

Additionally, prosecutors committed misfeasance or deliberate misconduct in 
suppressing or withholding exculpatory evidence from the defense. In the 
absence of physical evidence, prosecutors suborned (no other description I can 
think of) testimony, relying on jail house snitches. Cases against black men 
were argued before all white juries. One of those juries spent 45 minutes in 
deliberation before returning a conviction and then, as the prosecutor wanted, 
rendering a death sentence.

I attended a presentation by 2 of the latest Missouri death penalty exonerees 2 
years ago. Sponsored by Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, the 
program was simply 2 guys telling their stories: Reggie Griffin was released 
2013, 24 years on death row; and Joseph Amrine, released 2003, 17 years on 
death row.

Both were initially serving time for other non-violent offenses. Both were 
accused of prison yard murders. Neither was confronted with physical evidence. 
The prosecutions relied on inmates as witnesses. In both cases, the prosecutors 
withheld evidence. There is not one exonerated death row inmate who could not 
relate nearly the same tail.

Nationally, as of 2017, 161 death row inmates have been exonerated in the 
United States. They were pardoned, acquitted in new trials, or had the charges 
dismissed. They collectively spent an average 11 years on death row before 
exoneration. Prosecutorial or police error or both (rarely are there 
consequences for either) is a clear factor in each of the 4 Missouri 
exonerations and in others, whether of capital cases or not.

Misconduct in the legal system undermines our respect for the law, subverts 
justice, and most egregiously, it means with absolute statistical certainty, 
innocent persons have been executed in the past and will be in the future.

We rely on what is called proximate justice. Our justice system tries to do 
real justice, but we have no true way of getting there. Proximate justice is 
always imperfect justice, but we recognize that some justice is better than no 
justice at all. Proximate justice means saying, we need justice, but only some 
justice is the best we can do. Sometimes, even that isn’t the best.

The risk of one innocent man being executed argues for the abolishment of the 
death penalty, a limitation on our justice which is, at best, merely proximate. 
(source: Russell E. Saltzman, patheos.com)








OKLAHOMA:

US Supreme Court denies Julius Jones' petition indicating racial bias



The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a petition filed by convicted killer 
Julius Jones, indicating racial bias during his murder trial nearly 20 years 
ago.

Jones, who's on death row, was convicted of killing Edmond businessman Paul 
Howell in 1999.

Jones' best friend, Jimmy Lawson, spoke with KOCO, saying in the grand scheme 
of things it's a minor road block. He also said Jones is in good spirits and is 
optimistic about getting a new trial.

"It's just another step in the process, but we're going to stay locked in," 
Lawson aid.

Jones and his attorney tried to get the U.S. Supreme Court to look into 
possible racial bias during his murder trial, claiming prejudice influenced the 
decision of at least one juror.

"Based on a racial study that looked at death penalties in relation to African 
Americans compared to whites and the disparity in that number," Lawson said.

The highest court in the land, however, declined.

"They only hear about 1 % of all petitions. It's really, really slim," Lawson 
said.

Jones' attorney released a statement, in part saying, "There is no question 
that racial bias played a role in Julius Jones' death-penalty conviction." 
Lawson said Jones' fate is far from being sealed and they have other petitions 
pending.

"The most major petition will be the use of the N-word in relation to the case 
and the jurors who were on the case at that time," Lawson said. "That's in 
process, so that's probably the biggest one."

(source: KOCO news)








WYOMING:

Time to kill the death penalty



Death is not as popular as it used to be.

Back in 1994, Gallup found that a record 80 % of Americans favored the death 
penalty for people convicted of murder. By last year, however, support for 
executions had sunk to 56 % — one of the lowest marks since the 1970s, 
according to Gallup’s polling data.

It may now be time to see what Wyomingites think, as a group of lawmakers are 
proposing the state abolish the death penalty as a possible punishment.

State Rep. Jamie Flitner, R-Greybull, is among the cosponsors of House Bill 
145, and we hope other local legislators will lend their support, too.

The lead sponsors of the legislation, state Rep. Jared Olsen, R-Cheyenne, and 
Sen. Brian Boner, R-Douglas, have framed the repeal as essentially a 
cost-cutting measure.

“While we must continue to be tough on crime and keep victims at the forefront 
of our minds, the death penalty has been found to be ineffective and 
expensive,” Olsen said in statement.

Many of those accused of murder lack the financial resources to hire their own 
defense attorney, which means they’re represented by the Wyoming Public 
Defender’s Office — an arm of state government. And according to state 
calculations, the public defender’s office spends roughly $750,000 a year just 
to be ready for potential death penalty cases. That’s despite the fact that 
Wyoming hasn’t executed anyone since 1992 and currently has no one sitting on 
death row.

“... We continue to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars every year to 
maintain the death penalty,” observed Sen. Boner. “I believe the availability 
of a life without parole sentence adequately balances the need to protect 
public safety while recognizing the need to reduce the strain on taxpayer 
resources.”

We agree with the sponsors: The death penalty is rarely used and comes at too 
great a cost.

There is a case to be made that, although juries and courts aren’t imposing it, 
prosecutors are still able to use the threat of execution as a tool.

For instance, in 2012, Park County Attorney Bryan Skoric initially announced 
he’d seek the death penalty for a Cody man who murdered his wife. But 
eventually, Skoric struck a deal: The defendant agreed to plead guilty to 
2st-degree murder in exchange for a sentence of life in prison.

Still, even though the case did not go to trial, it brought a high cost. With 
death penalty cases being different, multiple public defenders filed scores of 
motions and documents and ultimately performed $250,000 worth of work. That’s 
state money that could have been spent elsewhere.

Further, even if a prosecutor is able to get a death sentence, there’s no 
guarantee that it will stand up on appeal. The last man that a Wyoming jury 
sentenced to death had his sentence overturned and converted to a term of life 
in prison — 10 years after he was sentenced. In the time in between, 
taxpayer-supported defense attorneys likely performed millions of dollars of 
work on the case.

It’s possible that prosecutors will again pursue the death penalty for the man, 
which would start the entire sentencing and appeal process all over again

In the meantime, the victim’s family and friends must wait and endure repeated 
reminders of the crime.

It seems that, for all practical purposes, the death penalty has already been 
abolished in Wyoming — consider how many horrific murders have been committed 
in recent decades, with no executions. However, we keep paying hundreds of 
thousands of dollars a year to keep the death penalty alive, as not much more 
than an empty threat.

It might be tempting to suggest that the problem lies with our court system — 
if only judges would act more quickly and give more deference to a jury’s 
findings, the death penalty could be effective in Wyoming.

But, we’d ask, can anything good come of making it easier for the government to 
take someone’s life?

One factor behind the death penalty’s sinking support has been the number of 
death row inmates proven to be innocent through DNA testing or other new 
evidence.

Before then-Illinois Gov. George Ryan commuted all of the state’s death 
sentences to terms of life in prison in 2003, Illinois went through a spell of 
time in which it exonerated more death row inmates (13) than it executed (12). 
It’s a chilling statistic.

We may have a more just legal system in Wyoming, but like anything else that 
involves people, we will sometimes get it wrong, too. In most cases, we can 
make some kind of amends for a wrongful conviction — releasing a person from 
prison or even providing them with compensation. When someone is executed, 
however, that mistake is irreversible.

And it’s a risk that’s not worth taking.

(source: Editorial, Powell Tribune)








WASHINGTON:

Bill introduced to allow death penalty for inmates committing murder



In 2011, Byron Scherf — a convicted rapist and murderer serving a life sentence 
at the Monroe Correctional Complex — strangled Corrections Officer Jayme Biendl 
in the prison chapel.

He was sentenced to death in 2013, but that sentence was vacated last year 
following the state Supreme Court decision that found Washington’s death 
penalty unconstitutional, claiming it was applied arbitrarily and in a racially 
biased manner.

Republican state Senator Keith Wagoner says that’s unacceptable.

“He is not eligible for the death penalty, so in effect there is no penalty at 
all for murders that are committed while you’re incarcerated [for life],” 
Wagoner said. “I think that’s just wrong, it’s wrong for the victims, it’s 
wrong for the family members of the victims and it doesn’t provide any 
accountability on the perpetrator.”

That’s why he has introduced a bill that creates a path to allow capital 
punishment in cases of someone serving life for aggravated murder who kills 
while behind bars. The bill is named after Biendl.

Prosecutors would be mandated to refer cases to a review panel that would be 
created to consider the cases and make a recommendation on whether the death 
penalty is appropriate.

State Attorney General Bob Ferguson has requested a separate bill to completely 
abolish the death penalty in Washington State.

Ferguson had no comment on Wagoner’s bill.

Washington Governor Jay Inslee backs Ferguson’s bill to abolish the death 
penalty.

Asked about Wagoner’s bill, Inslee’s office had this statement.

The governor recognizes that the death penalty is a very emotional issue and 
that people have strong feelings on all sides of the debate. As he has said 
before, capital punishment in our state has been imposed in an arbitrary and 
racially biased manner, is unequally applied and serves no criminal justice 
goal. Notably, the State Supreme Court ruled on this last year and came to the 
same conclusion.

(source: mynorthwest.com)








USA:

Death Penalty in US Not Dead Yet, But in Decline----Elected officials are not 
having a collective epiphany about capital punishment, writes John Kiriakou. 
But for other reasons executions are still going down.



Will 2019 be the year that the death penalty is finally abolished? The answer 
is no. But states, increasingly, are either revoking it, initiating moratoria 
or just not executing people. This isn’t necessarily because elected officials 
around the country have had an epiphany; it’s for myriad reasons.

First, the American public is finally coming to realize that innocent people 
have been—and continue to be—sentenced to death. Since 1973, 156 people on 
death row have been found to be innocent and have been released, according to 
the Death Penalty Information Center. One wrongful execution is bad enough. But 
156 innocent people could have been killed if not for the attorneys and 
activists who took up their cases and proved that they had been wronged. That, 
in and of itself, ought to be enough to abolish the death penalty. What 
governor, warden, or judge wants the blood of innocents on his hands?

Second, it is increasingly difficult for states to acquire the drugs necessary 
to perform a lethal injection execution. All 31 states that have a death 
penalty on the books use lethal injection as a method of execution. Several 
states still have the option of executing a prisoner in the electric chair; by 
hanging; and in the case of Oklahoma and Utah, by firing squad. But lethal 
injection is increasingly seen as cruel and unusual punishment.

A lethal injection execution uses 3 different drugs, all of which come with 
complications. The prisoner is first given a sedative. But sedatives work on 
different ways on different people, and the level of sedation may not be very 
deep. Also, some people metabolize sedatives quickly and thus may be coming out 
of the sedation when other drugs are administered. Following the sedative, the 
prisoner is given an injection of muscle relaxants. This is controversial 
because muscle relaxants can mask signs of distress, such as convulsions or 
twitching. And when given in large doses, it paralyzes the muscles that control 
breathing, causing the prison to suffocate slowly. Remember, with the sedative 
already working, the prisoner is unable to signal that he is in distress. 
Finally, the prisoner is given a shot of potassium chloride. Potassium in high 
doses, such as in an execution, causes cardiac arrest and is intensely painful.

Drug Access Problem

Some drug makers, meanwhile, balk at allowing their products to be used for 
executions. Nevada and Nebraska have run out of lethal injection drugs and have 
announced that they will begin experimenting with other available drugs, 
including diazepam, cisatracurium, and fentanyl. Nebraska also will use a 
potassium compound to stop the heart. All of these drugs individually can cause 
death. How they will work as a combination is not known. And the courts have 
not ruled on whether the new combination causes pain and is constitutional. It 
could be years before they are ever used.

Third, the courts have taken on more and more cases concerning lethal injection 
executions and whether they are “humane.” Although challenges to the death 
penalty have general been defeated at the Supreme Court, appeal after appeal 
has caused delays in many death sentences that in some cases have lasted for 
decades. In many of those cases, the prisoners died of natural causes while 
they were appealing their death sentences.

Minimum Age

Finally, a decade ago, the Supreme Court took up a case related to a minimum 
age for executions. Before 2005, states generally could execute prisoners once 
they turned 18, even if the crime had been committed when they were minors. The 
Supreme Court ended that, ruling that an execution could take place only if the 
prisoner was over the age of 18 at the time the crime was committed, even if 
states used the ages of 16 or 17 when charging minors as adults. Similarly, the 
court ruled in 2002 that it was unconstitutional to execute a prisoner who was 
intellectually disabled.

None of this signals an end to the death penalty. But it’s a good trend.

27 states have an active death penalty. 20 states do not. And 3 states have 
moratoria imposed by the governor. (In Washington State, where there had been a 
moratorium, the Supreme Court recently ruled that the death penalty there was 
unconstitutional.) Last year saw a record low death penalty usage in the United 
States. 36 of the 50 states sentenced no one to death. California and 
Pennsylvania, which combine to represent 1/3 of all Americans on death row, had 
record lows of new death penalty sentences. Even several southern states, which 
had been among the heaviest users of capital punishment, have not sentenced 
anybody to death in years. North Carolina, for example, has gone 2 consecutive 
years without a death sentence and has imposed only one in the past four years.

None of this is to say that the movement to end the death penalty has suddenly 
swelled into an unstoppable force. Even though the death penalty is wrong and 
should be done away with immediately, the fight is slow and steady. However, 
opponents of the death penalty should take heart. Exonerations, appeals, and 
civil suits drag on. And in that time, some prisoners can be saved. Meanwhile, 
we should never stop lobbying our elected officials, including governors and 
state representatives. This thing can be won, one vote at a time.

(source: Commentary; John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and 
a former senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John 
became the 6th whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the 
Espionage Act—a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as 
a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration’s torture 
program.----consortiumnews.com)

***********************

Innocent on death row----2 memoirs by men who endured decades of criminal 
injustice before being exonerated



How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row

By Anthony Ray Hinton

St. Martin’s

How Wrongful Conviction, Solitary Confine­ment, and 12 Years on Death Row 
Failed to Kill My Soul

By Anthony Graves

Beacon

In 2006, the late U.S. Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, a fierce defender 
of capital punishment, scoffed at the idea that innocent Americans were ever 
executed. “If such an event had occurred in recent years,” he argued in Kansas 
v. Marsh, “we would not have to hunt for it; the innocent’s name would be 
shouted from the rooftops by the abolition lobby.”

When Scalia wrote those words, Anthony Ray Hinton and Anthony Graves were on 
death row, condemned for crimes they did not commit. Nobody was shouting their 
names from the rooftops, though a few dedicated attorneys, convinced of their 
innocence, were struggling to get their convictions overturned. Graves, a 
Texan, had already been incarcerated for more than 13 years; Hinton, from 
Alabama, had al­ready spent more than 20 years in prison.

The 2 Anthonys, both African American, led remarkably similar lives right up to 
the moment police officers showed up at their homes and took them into custody. 
Brought up in the rural South by loving, no-nonsense mothers, both men were 
baseball fans: as a teenager, Hinton hoped for an athletic scholarship, while 
Graves dreamed of playing for the Houston Astros. Both men enjoyed female 
companionship: Hinton was thinking about marrying and starting a family; Graves 
already had three sons. Both men had prior convictions: at age 27, Hinton had 
voluntarily turned himself in for stealing a car and served several months in a 
work-release program; at age 22, Graves had voluntarily turned himself in for 
selling $40 worth of marijuana and served six months in jail. Both men had 
stayed out of trouble since then. They did not know why the police were 
handcuffing them and taking them to the station for questioning.

And how could they have known? Hinton was working in a locked warehouse when a 
restaurant manager 15 miles away was robbed and shot—the 3rd in a string of 
similar crimes. Graves was asleep in his mother’s living room when 6 people 35 
miles away were shot, stabbed, or bludgeoned to death. Both men had multiple 
witnesses as to their whereabouts when the crimes were committed. Both men’s 
alibis were ignored.

If you’ve read Bryan Stevenson’s best seller Just Mercy, a moving and 
revelatory look at what passes for criminal justice in parts of America, you 
won’t be surprised at what happened to the 2 Anthonys after their arrests. 
False accusations from prisoners who were trying to save their own skins. 
Mistaken identifications from faulty lineups. Suppressed or manufactured 
evidence. Ex­pert witnesses who were either unqualified or mendacious. 
Attorneys who were either incompetent or priced out of reach. Politically 
motivated prosecutors and judges who were willing to condemn innocent black men 
in order to rack up more convictions. Repeated refusal to look at the facts.

A white police lieutenant summed up Alabama justice the evening he rode with 
Hinton to the Birmingham county jail:

You know, I don’t care whether you did or didn’t do it. In fact, I believe you 
didn’t do it. But it doesn’t matter. If you didn’t do it, one of your brothers 
did. And you’re going to take the rap. . . . I can give you five reasons why 
they are going to convict you. . . . Number 1, you’re black. Number 2, a white 
man gonna say you shot him. Number 3, you’re gonna have a white district 
attorney. Number 4, you’re gonna have a white judge. And number 5, you’re gonna 
have an all-white jury. . . . You know what that spell? . . . Conviction.

Graves, arrested just before his 27th birthday, was exonerated a few months 
after his 45th. Hinton, arrested at age 29, was exonerated two months before 
turning 59. That’s a long time to live in a 5-by-7-foot cell, either too cold 
or blisteringly hot, isolated from other prisoners except for maybe an hour a 
day in the prison yard, having little contact with the world outside the walls, 
hearing fellow inmates being escorted to their deaths, always wondering when 
your number will come up. America may have some comfortable prisons for 
white-collar offenders, but if you’re poor and on death row, prison is hell.

These memoirs, however, are not just horror stories; they are also stories of 
grace and redemption. Graves writes: “I came to see my fellow inmates as the 
abandoned few, left behind by their schools, families, and communities. Surely 
some were innocent, but even the men who weren’t had at some point been 
redeemable.” Hinton concurs: “A lot of guys came here and died here without 
ever getting a visit. A lot of them never had a parent who loved them.”

Graves and Hinton were more fortunate: they had ongoing support from friends, 
pen pals, and especially their mothers. “A mother’s love was one of the few 
forces able to break through the state’s contrived obstacles,” Graves says. 
Hinton’s mother visited him faithfully until her health deteriorated and she 
could no longer endure the long drive.

Both men reached out to their fellow prisoners. “We all knew grief. We all knew 
sorrow. We all knew what it was like to be alone,” writes Hinton. “And we all 
were beginning to learn that you can make a family out of anyone.” Though in 
solitary confinement, prisoners played chess by calling out positions and 
moves. Graves started a fantasy football league. Hinton started a book club. 
Both men read widely, wrote many letters, and eventually connected with 
dedicated attorneys who doggedly fought for justice—in Hinton’s case, Stevenson 
and his team at Equal Justice Initiative, who kept appealing right up to the 
U.S. Supreme Court.

So how do the books differ? The Sun Does Shine, a New York Times best seller, 
was the summer 2018 selection of Oprah’s Book Club. Written with Lara Love 
Hardin, it reads like a novel. Of the 2 books, Hinton’s is the more 
introspective and religious. Hinton writes about how it feels to live in a 
prison cell decade after decade with little hope of ever being free again, and 
how he maintained his sanity in spite of isolation, brutality, and loneliness.

Graves’s book is less philosophical, though he paints a similar picture of life 
on death row. Having spent a lot of time in his cell reading law books, he pays 
close attention to legal (and illegal) procedures. Like Hinton, he delivers a 
searing indictment of what happens to poor black men condemned to death: “I 
witnessed some of the worst inhumanity imaginable. . . . What I never witnessed 
during my 18 1/2 years in prison was justice.”

Free at last, both Anthonys now have full speaking schedules, meeting with 
legislators, lawyers, law enforcement, and celebrities. Hinton works as a 
community educator for Equal Justice Initiative, and Graves has set up a 
foundation to promote reforms throughout the criminal justice system. One might 
think their eventual release supports Justice Scalia’s belief that innocent 
prisoners are never executed, but a 2014 study by the National Academy of 
Sciences estimates that 1 death-row prisoner out of every 25 is innocent. Some 
of these have been put to death. Scalia may not have known about justice gone 
terribly awry, but the 2 Anthonys have lived it—and they are shouting from the 
rooftops.

(source: christiancentury.com)