How many innocent men have been executed in US?
DNA has freed convicts because the physical evidence from their trial is required to be preserved and stored as long as they are in jail, so this evidence is available for re-examination on the basis of new scientific discoveries. Yes, DNA freed HUNDREDS of wrongly-convicted people, some of which had been wrongly imprisoned for decades! But when a criminal is executed, all the physical evidence from his trial is immediately destroyed. So it’s hard to say if we’ve ever wrongly executed a prisoner, though there have been quite a few cases where it’s strongly suspected. Many murder trials are based on the testimony of one ‘star’ witness, and often this witness will speak out later, saying the police told him what to say, threatened him or her with prison if they didn’t cooperate, etc. Often exculpatory evidence is discovered after the trial but the govt. refuses to re-open the case–this happens particularly in Texas all the time.
