Most of us have said it and/or thought it, at some point. “Why the hell does it take so long to kill death row inmates?” In some instances, it literally takes several decades from sentencing to execution. Many have called this a miscarriage of justice. The majority of Americans want the process to speed up. For one North Carolina death row inmate, had the public gotten their wish, he would have been put to death a long time ago. Had that happened at our insistence, then today there’d be blood on all of our hands.
The longest-serving North Carolina death row inmate and his half-brother, who was serving a life sentence have been declared “innocent” by both the judge and prosecutor now handling the case. They had spent more than 30 years in prison for a rape and murder that they did not commit.
Leon Brown and Henry McCollum were just 15 and 19 at the time they were arrested for the abhorrent crimes in 1983. The victim was just 11-years-old.
DNA evidence absolved the innocent defendants of any link to biological material that was collected at the scene of the crime. Additionally, the DNA evidence created a positive hit on a known sex offender from the same small town in which the crime was committed. That sex offender lived just feet away from the field in which the victim’s body was found.
The conviction was based almost exclusively on alleged confessions from both men. Lawyers for the falsely accused illustrated to the court that both have significant intellectual disabilities. The two were no match for law enforcement, who isolated them for hours until they coerced their confessions. Both defendants erroneously believed that they would be let go if they simply confessed.
Unfortunately, here we go again. Another case involving innocent defendants. Another case highlighting how faulty the Criminal Justice System can be, at times. Also, this case highlights the power of DNA evidence.
While we can’t ever go back in time, we can learn from this and other similar cases. Bottom line, alleged confessions don’t always represent the truth. Prosecutors don’t always send the guilty parties to prison. We must continue to increase our level of awareness concerning criminal cases and understand that things are not always as clear cut as they appear