Is the U.S. Executing Innocence People?

October 26, 2000

A Preliminary Report of the Grassroots Investigation Project

 Pursuing justice, peace, and equality
Quixote Center
P.O Box 5206, Hyattsville, MD 20722
Phone: 301-699-0042                            Fax: 301-864-2182
Web Site: www.quixote.org          E-Mail: ejusa@quixote.org

Footnotes to Introduction

[6] A recent Columbia University study revealed that state and federal courts found grave constitutional error in two-thirds of the cases they reviewed between 1973-1995.  Of these errors, 19% involved police or prosecutors suppressing exculpatory evidence and another 19% involved coerced confessions, use of jailhouse informants, exclusion of black jurors, and other official abuses of power.  (See A Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases, 1973-1995, James Liebman, Columbia University School of Law, June 2000, available at http://www.thejusticeproject.org)