"This is a tragic illustration of why law enforcement must record the entire interrogation of any witness or potential suspect in any investigation involving a serious crime," said one of Thibodeaux's legal team.
"When juries learn that the accused has apparently confessed, they invariably have a difficult time questioning the reliability and truthfulness of the confession--unless they can see the entire interrogation and determine whether it's truthful and reliable not only in light of the interrogation methods used in obtaining the confession, but also in light of other evidence that contradicts or disproves the confession."
Another of his attorneys noted, "This journey to freedom was a long time coming. The solitary conditions that Mr. Thibodeaux was forced to live under as a death row inmate were almost more than he could bear at times, but he never gave up hope that one day he would be free."
"The death penalty is a human rights violation in any case, for anyone. But, there can be no stronger argument against capital punishment than the condemnation of a truly innocent man," said Denise LeBoeuf of the Capital Post-Conviction Project of Louisiana (LeBoeuf is currently Director of the ACLU's Death Penalty Project.)
LeBoeuf added, "Louisiana came--to use Justice Blackmon's phrase--"perilously close to simple murder' and Louisiana citizens should demand a moratorium on executions until they can be assured that there are no more miscarriages of justice like the one that occurred in this case." Since 2000, six innocent people have been exonerated from Louisiana's death row, versus just three executions.
The 300 DNA exonerees have served a combined 4013 years in prison, with an average of 13 and a half years each. The real perpetrator was identified in nearly half of the cases, and at least 130 violent crimes could have been prevented if the true perpetrator was initially arrested instead of the wrongly convicted. More than a third of those cleared by DNA have not been compensated for the time they spent wrongly imprisoned.
While DNA testing has been widely available in criminal prosecutions since the late 90s, people convicted as late as 2008 have been cleared by DNA, indicating that this powerful tool will continue to be helpful in proving wrongful convictions for the foreseeable future.
The leading cause of wrongful convictions overturned by DNA is eyewitness misidentification, which has played a role in nearly 75 percent of the 300 exonerations. Unvalidated or improper forensic science played a role in approximately half (51 %) of wrongful convictions later overturned by DNA testing. False confessions and admissions lead to wrongful convictions in just over a quarter (27%). Informants contributed to wrongful convictions in 18 % of cases.
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