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California | San Quentin begins prison reform - but not for those on death row

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California is transferring everyone on death row at San Quentin prison to other places, as it tries to reinvent the state's most notorious facility as a rehabilitation centre. Many in this group will now have new freedoms. But they are also asking why they've been excluded from the reform - and whether they'll be safe in new prisons. Keith Doolin still remembers the day in 2019 when workers came to dismantle one of the United States' most infamous death chambers.

USA: Meet the Exonerated

We see their broad smiles as they stride to freedom, exchanging embraces with loved ones and flanked by jubilant lawyers. We watch as they step to a bevy of microphones and briefly describe the prison hell they left behind and the uncertain future that lies ahead. For some, a decade of their lives lost. For others, 20, 30, even 40 years, gone forever.

We shake our heads and wonder: Didn't this also happen only a couple of weeks ago? Wasn't that guy innocent, too? Jeez, how many are there?

Now we finally have a measure of the iceberg's tip. Counting only felony cases where innocence has been officially restored, there have been 873 exonerations since 1989, according to a report just released by the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University and the University of Michigan Law School. The researchers also identified at least 1,170 cases since 1995 in which police framed innocent defendants, mostly for drug and gun crimes.

The implications are staggering. During the last 23 years, in an average week, at least one prisoner was exonerated.


Source: Huffington Post, David Protess, President, Chicago Innocence Project, May 25, 2012.

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