<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Miscarriages of justice and wrongful convictions are a pervasive reality in America's criminal justice system. In this paper we examine news coverage of miscarriages of justice in the death penalty system and the release of death row inmates to understand what we call the public life of exonerations. We examine the way newspapers tell the story of exonerations and the various tilts and tendencies that characterize their presentations. We focus on the five states which, from 1972–2019, had ten or more exonerations. During that period, they were Florida, Illinois, Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. We conclude that the public discourse surrounding exoneration, while providing evidence of the death penalty system's most consequential flaws, serves as much to preserve that system as to challenge it.</p></abstract>

Miscarriages of justice and wrongful convictions are a pervasive reality in America's criminal justice system. In this paper we examine news coverage of miscarriages of justice in the death penalty system and the release of death row inmates to understand what we call the public life of exonerations. We examine the way newspapers tell the story of exonerations and the various tilts and tendencies that characterize their presentations. We focus on the five states which, from 1972–2019, had ten or more exonerations. During that period, they were Florida, Illinois, Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. We conclude that the public discourse surrounding exoneration, while providing evidence of the death penalty system's most consequential flaws, serves as much to preserve that system as to challenge it.

Innocence is Not Enough: The Public Life of Death Row Exonerations

Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst College

British Journal of American Legal Studies

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"Innocence is Not Enough: The Public Life of Death Row Exonerations"}

Miscarriages of justice and wrongful convictions are a pervasive reality in America's criminal justice system. In this paper we examine news coverage of...

	Blamed
Individual Actor	221 (59.4%)
The State	137 (36.8%)
The Exoneree	1 (3.8%)
Total	372

	Attribute Blame
Yes	334 (32.2%)
No	702 (67.8%)

Speakers Questioning Innocence	DNA Cases	Non-DNA Cases
State	37 (90.4%)	129 (66.5%)
Advocate of Victim	2 (4.8%)	32 (16.5%)
Juror	1 (2.4%)	6 (3.1%)
Citizen	1 (2.4%)	23 (11.8%)
Newspaper	0 (0.0%)	4 (2.1%)
Total Number of Speakers Questioning Innocence	41	194

	Use of word “Exoneration”
Yes	426 (24.8%)
No	1,291 (75.2%)
Total	1,717

	Innocence Questioned
Yes	235 (22.7%)
No	801 (77.3%)
Total	1,036

Innocence is Not Enough: The Public Life of Death Row Exonerations

Published Online: Aug 04, 2020

Page range: 209 - 232

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/bjals-2020-0016

Keywords
Miscarriages of Justice, Exonerations, Death Penalty, News Coverage

© 2020 Austin Sarat et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Who Is Blamed for the Wrongful Conviction? The total number of people blamed is 372. The number of articles in which someone is blamed is 334 because within a single article there may be multiple instances of blame.

Attributing Blame for the Wrongful Convictions

Who Questions Innocence?

Use of the word “Exoneration”.

Questioning the Exoneree's Innocence In this and subsequent tables we focus on the subset of articles which contain some explanation or argument about why someone was released from death row.

Who Questions Innocence? The total here is larger than the 235 articles in which innocence is questioned because those articles may contain more than one instance in which that occurs.

Questioning Innocence in DNA Exonerations

Who Attributes Blame?

Speaker	Percentage of Times Innocence is Questioned
State	177 (68.3%)
Advocate for Victim	45 (17.5%)
Juror	7 (2.7%)
Citizen	26 (10%)
Newspaper	4 (1.5%)
Total of Speakers who Questioned Innocence	259

Innocence Questioned
DNA Case	41 (17.5%)
Non-DNA Case	194 (82.5%)
Total Number of Articles in Which Innocence is Questioned	235

Speakers doing the Blaming
State	51 (13.7%)
Advocate of Victim	4 (1.1%)
Juror	1 (0.3%)
Citizen	37 (9.9%)
Newspaper Reporter	134 (36%)
Exoneree or His/Her Advocate	145 (39%)
Total Number of Speakers Attributing Blame	372

Innocence is Not Enough: The Public Life of Death Row Exonerations

Published Online: Aug 04, 2020

Page range: 209 - 232

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/bjals-2020-0016

KeywordsMiscarriages of Justice, Exonerations, Death Penalty, News Coverage

© 2020 Austin Sarat et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Who Is Blamed for the Wrongful Conviction? The total number of people blamed is 372. The number of articles in which someone is blamed is 334 because within a single article there may be multiple instances of blame.

Attributing Blame for the Wrongful Convictions

Who Questions Innocence?

Use of the word “Exoneration”.

Questioning the Exoneree's Innocence In this and subsequent tables we focus on the subset of articles which contain some explanation or argument about why someone was released from death row.

Who Questions Innocence? The total here is larger than the 235 articles in which innocence is questioned because those articles may contain more than one instance in which that occurs.

Questioning Innocence in DNA Exonerations

Who Attributes Blame?

Keywords
Miscarriages of Justice, Exonerations, Death Penalty, News Coverage