The Man Who "Didn't Do It"
August, 1980
Death-penalty advocates have fostered the idea that very few people are wrongly convicted and that our elaborate system of appeals virtually precludes their execution. That is a myth based on misunderstanding. Convictions are all too easily obtained on false or mistaken testimony by witnesses, and appellate courts rule not on evidence but on points of law. In 1978, we reported the case of a mentally disturbed Ohio woman who plausibly confessed to a multiple murder she had not committed and who w...
