- 2 days ago
The justice system doesn’t always get it right, and these cases are the most tragic proof.
Welcome to WatchMojo.WORLD. In this video, we’re counting down the most heartbreaking cases where innocent people were sentenced to death—only to be exonerated after it was too late.
From Curtis Flowers to Sabrina Butler and Ray Krone, these individuals were wrongfully convicted and faced the ultimate punishment. These are the stories of lives lost or nearly lost due to broken investigations, false testimonies, and systemic failures.
🔍 Do these cases make a compelling argument against the death penalty?
Let us know your thoughts—respectfully—in the comments. And follow for more true crime stories, justice breakdowns, and real-life tragedies that still demand answers.
Welcome to WatchMojo.WORLD. In this video, we’re counting down the most heartbreaking cases where innocent people were sentenced to death—only to be exonerated after it was too late.
From Curtis Flowers to Sabrina Butler and Ray Krone, these individuals were wrongfully convicted and faced the ultimate punishment. These are the stories of lives lost or nearly lost due to broken investigations, false testimonies, and systemic failures.
🔍 Do these cases make a compelling argument against the death penalty?
Let us know your thoughts—respectfully—in the comments. And follow for more true crime stories, justice breakdowns, and real-life tragedies that still demand answers.
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TVTranscript
00:00Ron Kiney was supposed to be executed in 1975, alongside his friends, for a brutal murder
00:06another man confessed to.
00:08Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we'll be looking at the most egregious miscarriages
00:12of justice, in which individuals were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death, only to
00:17later be exonerated.
00:18And then you found out, oh, my bad, we made a mistake.
00:23Curtis Flowers On July 16, 1996, four people were found
00:27dead inside a furniture store in Winona, Mississippi.
00:30The police quickly focused on Curtis Flowers, an African-American man who had been fired
00:33from the store about two weeks earlier.
00:35Flowers was tried six times for these murders, four of which ended in him being convicted
00:39and sentenced to death.
00:40Do you have faith in the judicial system here?
00:44The case eventually reached the Supreme Court, which overturned the conviction in 2019.
00:48The court found that District Attorney Doug Evans had largely excluded black people from
00:52the jury in all six trials.
00:53Two of the trials ended in a hung jury.
00:56With new evidence and alternative suspects suggesting Flowers' innocence, the state decided
01:00to drop all charges against him.
01:01By this point, he had already spent over 20 years sitting on death row.
01:05I knew it would, but I didn't know when.
01:07Glenn Ford When Isidore Roseman was killed in his Shreveport, Louisiana
01:11jewelry store on November 5, 1983, Glenn Ford, Roseman's handyman, was arrested.
01:16The physical evidence linking Ford to the murder was minimal.
01:19Police had found gunshot residue on his hand, and he was apparently seen with certain items
01:22stolen from the crime scene.
01:24Nonetheless, prosecutors exploited his defense lawyer's inexperience and managed to secure
01:28a conviction and death sentence.
01:30Even though there was no eyewitness and no murder weapon, the jury came back with a guilty
01:34verdict and a death sentence.
01:36It wasn't until 2014 after information emerged about the real killer that Ford's conviction
01:41was overturned and he was released.
01:43Sadly, his freedom didn't last long.
01:45Ford was diagnosed with lung cancer shortly after his release, and he passed away in 2015,
01:49never receiving compensation for his wrongful conviction.
01:52What do you think the lesson from your case is?
01:55It's, uh, forgiveness, I guess.
01:58Anthony Porter In 1983, Anthony Porter was convicted and sentenced
02:01to death for a double murder in Chicago, Illinois.
02:04In 1998, he was just 48 hours away from being executed when a judge decided to grant him a stay.
02:09The following year, Porter was exonerated after a team of Northwestern University professors
02:17and students presented new evidence, including a recording of Al Story Simon confessing to the murders.
02:22Simon was subsequently sentenced to prison, but was also exonerated after he recanted his confession,
02:26claiming he was tricked by the Northwestern team.
02:28Despite spending 17 years on death row, Porter was denied compensation and he passed away in 2021.
02:34However, his case played a major role in the abolition of the death penalty in Illinois.
02:38The Anthony Porter case was one of the cases that drew a nationwide attention to Illinois
02:44and the problem of wrongful convictions here.
02:46Walter McMillan In the case of Walter McMillan, it was guilty until proven innocent.
02:50An African-American man, McMillan was arrested in June 1987 for the murder of a white lady in Monroeville, Alabama.
02:56You didn't kill Ron DeMarce?
02:57No sir, I ain't never seen Ron DeMarce a day in my life.
03:00He was sent straight to death row, where he sat for 15 months before even facing a trial.
03:04Despite numerous witnesses confirming he was with his family at the time of the crime
03:08and no incriminating physical evidence, McMillan was found guilty by a jury.
03:11Although they recommended a life sentence, the judge imposed the death penalty instead.
03:15McMillan's fate is now in the hands of the Alabama Supreme Court,
03:19which is expected to decide soon if he's entitled to a new trial.
03:23It was later revealed that the police had coerced witnesses to give false testimony
03:27and prosecutors had withheld potentially exculpatory evidence.
03:30After six years on death row, McMillan's conviction was overturned in 1993.
03:35As he waved goodbye to death row, there had been no apology from the state.
03:38Ron Kiney
03:39Back in 1974, Ron Kiney was traveling with his motorcycle club across the U.S.
03:44when Richard Velton, a college student, was murdered in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
03:47Despite Kiney and his biker gang being in Los Angeles at the time,
03:51authorities still charged them with the crime.
03:52Then they tell us, we gotta go back to Albuquerque because we did a murder.
03:56And we're thinking, oh boy, you know, this is really getting stupid.
04:01They were convicted after Judith Weir, a local motel maid, testified to witnessing the murder.
04:05However, an investigation by the Detroit News found that Weir had lied on the stand.
04:10Even after she recanted her testimony, the men were denied a new trial.
04:13Ms. Weir was pressured. And we see this a lot with the misuse of the death penalty.
04:19It wasn't until September 1975 when a drifter named Carrie Rodney Lee confessed to the murder
04:24and ballistics linked his gun to the crime scene, but the charges were dropped and they were released.
04:28On December 4th, 1975, the judge overturned their convictions.
04:33And Ron and his friends were released from death row.
04:36Sabrina Butler
04:37On April 11th, 1989, Sabrina Butler experienced every mother's worst nightmare.
04:42The sudden death of her infant son.
04:43After unsuccessfully attempting to resuscitate him at home,
04:46she rushed him to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.
04:48The very next day, while still grieving, Butler was arrested and confused of murdering her own child.
04:53Her attempts to revive him had inadvertently caused internal injuries,
04:57but her lawyers failed to highlight this crucial detail during the trial
05:00and called no witnesses to testify on her behalf.
05:03When we had the retrial, they found out that my son had heart problems, kidney problems.
05:07As a result, she was convicted and sentenced to death,
05:09becoming the only woman on Mississippi's death row.
05:12Butler was just 17 years old when she was convicted and spent six and a half years behind bars.
05:17This conviction was later overturned and a second trial,
05:20which featured more witnesses and evidence supporting her innocence, ended in an acquittal.
05:24Are you really exonerated?
05:27No, you're not exonerated.
05:28Gary Drinkard
05:29In September 1993, Gary Drinkard was arrested for the murder of Dalton Pace,
05:34an automotive junk dealer in Decatur, Alabama.
05:36The main evidence against him was the testimony of his half-sister and her partner,
05:40who implicated Drinkard in exchange for having their unrelated robbery charges dropped.
05:44And to get out of it, she told him I robbed and killed a man.
05:46Due to the ineffective legal counsel he received,
05:48Drinkard was convicted of felony murder and sentenced to death.
05:51I spent almost six years on death row in Alabama for a crime I didn't commit.
05:56After nearly six years on death row, he was granted a new trial.
05:59This time, his defense presented a witness who confirmed Drinkard was home at the time of the murder,
06:03and evidence showing he had a debilitating back injury, which largely limited his movement.
06:07The jury took only one hour to find him not guilty.
06:10God is the only one who has the right to take a life.
06:13People don't.
06:14Randall Dale Adams
06:15The 1988 documentary The Thin Blue Line revolves around Randall Dale Adams,
06:20a man sentenced to death for the 1976 murder of Texas police officer Robert Wood.
06:24Adams consistently maintained his innocence, even after his sentence was commuted to life in prison.
06:29He argued that Wood was actually killed by David Ray Harris,
06:32who had given him a ride on the day of the murder.
06:34Why did I meet this kid? I don't know. Why did I run out of gas at that time? I don't know.
06:39In the documentary, Harris admitted that Adams had nothing to do with the crime.
06:42How can you be sure?
06:46Because I'm the one that knows.
06:47This admission, coupled with evidence of prosecutorial misconduct,
06:50led to Adams' conviction being overturned. Although he was granted a new trial,
06:54the district attorney's office chose not to prosecute the case again, and Adams was released.
06:58He received no compensation from the state of Texas.
07:01She said the first night she pulled into Dallas it was raining, that it was lightning,
07:06and they're coming into Dallas, and she said if there was ever a hell on earth it's Dallas County.
07:15Yeah, she's right.
07:16Ricky Jackson, Wiley Bridgeman, and Kwame Ajammu
07:20On May 19, 1975, Harold Franks, a money order collector, was fatally shot outside a grocery store
07:26in Cleveland, Ohio. Based on the supposed eyewitness testimony of Eddie Vernon,
07:30police arrested Ricky Jackson and brothers Wiley Bridgeman and Kwame Ajammu, then known as Ronnie
07:35Bridgeman. He told the police that he was getting off the school bus at the exact time that his
07:40crime was happening, and he witnessed the three of us perpetrate this crime.
07:44Vernon's testimony was the only evidence against them, yet it resulted in them being sentenced to
07:48death. Ajammu was paroled in 2003, but his name wasn't cleared until 2014, when Vernon recanted his
07:54testimony, claiming he had been pressured by the police to testify. Jackson and Bridgeman were also
07:58released and fully exonerated. For their wrongful imprisonment, all three men received millions
08:02of dollars in compensation from the state of Ohio.
08:05How did that feel, that day that you got out of prison?
08:08It was surreal. It was almost like having an out-of-body experience.
08:13Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get notified about
08:17our latest videos. You have the option to be notified for occasional videos or all of them.
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08:28Ray Krohn
08:29Ray Krohn was tried twice for the 1991 murder of Kim Ancona, a bartender in Phoenix, Arizona.
08:35During his first trial in 1992, the prosecution's case relied on an expert witness who claimed Krohn's
08:40teeth matched the bite marks found on Ancona's body.
08:43Krohn willingly agreed to provide an impression of his teeth by biting into a piece of styrofoam.
08:49He was ultimately convicted and sentenced to death.
08:51Krohn maintained he was innocent, but he had no explanation for why his bite
08:56impression looked like the wound on Kim Ancona.
08:59The case was retried in 1996, and although he was found guilty again,
09:03his sentence was reduced to life in prison. Krohn's fate took a turn with the advancement
09:07of DNA technology. In 2002, DNA analysis implicated Kenneth Phillips, a sex offender who
09:12lived close to the bar at the time of the murder. Krohn was subsequently released and has since become
09:16a strong advocate for getting rid of the death penalty.
09:19I will never forget that day I got out. In fact, I commemorated it, so I won't ever forget it.
09:27While it's clearly a sensitive topic, we'd like to know your thoughts on whether these
09:30examples make a case for abolishing the death penalty. Share them respectfully in the comments
09:34below.
09:39Did you enjoy this video? Check out these other clips from WatchMojo, and be sure to subscribe
09:44and ring the bell to be notified about our latest videos.
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