Many articles and letters have appeared in local papers discussing the hundreds of millions of dollars that will be saved by the state if California voters pass Proposition 34. There are other more compelling numbers to keep in mind when voting on this referendum. Since 1973, 141 wrongfully convicted individuals in 26 states have been exonerated and released from death row. As recently as Sept. 28, Damon Thibodeaux was exonerated from Louisiana’s death row after a 15-year wrongful incarceration.

Thibodeaux has the distinction of being the 300th client of the Innocence Project, a nonprofit group that works on exoneration cases exclusively based on DNA evidence. Only 18 of the Innocence Project’s clients have been on death row. Unfortunately, the “real world” is not resplendent with DNA evidence at all crime scenes. So, it takes diligent work of investigators and attorneys along with active cooperation from clients for anyone to be exonerated from death row.

Currently, there are 3,170 people on death row in the United States. What is the chance that all of these individuals are 100 percent definitely guilty? How many of them were convicted based on eyewitness testimony, faulty forensics or misleading circumstances? Did any of these individuals have ineffectual assistance of counsel? Until human beings are perfect, and “the system” is composed of these perfect individuals, we run the risk of executing an innocent person. That is a risk that I am not willing to take.

Natalie Wormeli

Davis

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