Blog: The Innocent and the Death Penalty

In “The Truth about the Death Penalty,” an op-ed that appeared in Sunday’s edition of California’s Daily Democrat, Yolo County Public Defender Tracie Olson urges California to abolish the death penalty, citing wrongful convictions among other reasons.

 

Olson’s piece was a response to an earlier op-ed by District Attorney Jeff Reisig, who supports preserving the death penalty and shortening the appeals process, which he calls “frivolous.” Of the 297 DNA exonerations, 17 served time on death row and an additional 15 were charged with capital crimes but not sentenced to death. 

 

Olson writes:

I doubt anyone could defend the notion that the long legal processes that freed these innocent people were frivolous. 

Read the

full op-ed

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Read more about

the wrongfully convicted who served time on death row

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Read about the Innocence Project’s

position on the death penalty

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