This list contains names of people who were found guilty of capital crimes and placed on death row who were later found to be wrongly convicted. Some people were exonerated posthumously.
This list includes individuals who were sentenced to death and had their sentences overturned by acquittal or pardon. The state listed is the state where the individual was convicted, the year listed is the year of release, and the case listed is the case that overturned their conviction.
This list does not include
- posthumous pardons for individuals executed before 1950
- inmates who were given life sentences when their country, province or state abolished the death penalty
- people who were threatened with death and never jailed.
- people who were jailed by extralegal groups or courts, for example as often occurs in cases of sentences of stoning.
Famous quotes containing the words list of, list, death and/or row:
“Shea—they call him Scholar Jack—
Went down the list of the dead.
Officers, seamen, gunners, marines,
The crews of the gig and yawl,
The bearded man and the lad in his teens,
Carpenters, coal-passers—all.”
—Joseph I. C. Clarke (1846–1925)
“Lovers, forget your love,
And list to the love of these,
She a window flower,
And he a winter breeze.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“It was not death he feared—it was the disgrace of death, and the misery of the ignominious preparations. He knew in his heart that heaven could not call it murder that he had done; but he felt equally sure that man would do so.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“Row after row with strict impunity
The headstones yield their names to the element,
The wind whirrs without recollection....”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)