{"id":41873,"date":"2021-05-17T14:55:33","date_gmt":"2021-05-17T14:55:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=41873"},"modified":"2021-05-17T14:55:38","modified_gmt":"2021-05-17T14:55:38","slug":"i-represented-an-innocent-man-on-death-row-heres-why-nc-must-end-the-death-penalty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=41873","title":{"rendered":"“I represented an innocent man on death row: Here\u2019s why NC must end the death penalty”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

NC Policy Watch<\/a>: “In September 2014, I was sitting with Henry McCollum at the moment a judge ordered his release from death row for a crime he did not commit. Many folks in the courtroom clapped in celebration. Others embraced out of relief. It had been 30 years since Henry and his brother Leon Brown \u2013 two innocent and intellectually disabled children \u2013 had been convicted and sentenced to death in Robeson County, North Carolina. A case that had captured the country\u2019s attention had come to an end for the two men, who had unflinchingly claimed their innocence for all those years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The press, lawyers, and advocates rushed to announce the court\u2019s decision. The courthouse buzzed as they explained the 30-years of injustice \u2013 undisclosed evidence, new DNA results, the rush to judgment that failed to give closure to the family of the victim, the wrongful incarceration \u2013 endured by Henry and his little brother, Leon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Henry, the innocent man at the center of it all, remained solemn. After the judge ordered his release, he was led, still shackled, to a small, dim holding area of the same courthouse that took his freedom to begin with. I knelt near him for a few minutes. He was silent and didn\u2019t make eye contact. He was overwhelmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Considering all Henry had been through \u2013 the manipulation by law enforcement that led to his false confession, being labeled the \u201cworst of the worst\u201d by United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the severe depression he experienced in prison, suicide attempts that resulted from the unimaginable toll of watching friends be executed, and the 30 years of innocence claims that were effectively ignored until that day \u2013 he had every right to be overwhelmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Henry and Leon\u2019s case is reason enough to repeal the death penalty in North Carolina.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NC Policy Watch: “In September 2014, I was sitting with Henry McCollum at the moment a judge ordered his release from death row for a crime he did not commit. Many folks in the courtroom clapped in celebration. Others embraced out of relief. It had been 30 years since Henry and his brother Leon Brown…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41873"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41874,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41873\/revisions\/41874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}