New Yorkers for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (NYADP) could have closed up shop years ago – when New York effectively ended the death penalty. But they are still in business and the recent case involving Frank Sterling is a good reminder why.
Frank Sterling had been awake for 36 hours when he confessed to murdering Viola Manville.
That was in 1988. Throughout his 19 years in prison Sterling maintained his confession was false and he was innocent. Just a few months ago, DNA evidence pointed to the same conclusion and a New York court ordered Sterling’s release.
Collateral damage
While Frank Sterling was locked away for another man’s crime, the person who killed Viola Manville killed again. His second victim was a four-year-old girl. That murder took place six years after Viola Manville’s. Prying a false confession from Sterling left the guilty man free, with terrible consequences.
This situation is far from unique. In at least 11 of the 138 cases of exoneration from death row, someone was killed or harmed by the real perpetrator while the wrong man sat awaiting execution.
The ingored effect on victims
Sterling’s wrongful conviction devastated his own life and threatened the safety of others. But wrongful conviction can also affect surviving victims and their families.
Jennifer Thompson-Cannino was violently raped in 1984. She survived but the experience changed her. She described it as having “your soul and spirit taken from you and crushed before your eyes.” Jennifer eventually identified Ronald Cotton as the perpetrator and he was convicted and sentenced to life. Nine years later, just as Jennifer had established a sense of normalcy to her life, Cotton was proved innocent through DNA.
“With the delivery of the DNA results came an overwhelming shame and guilt,” wrote Jennifer in a 2004 blog post. “My mind began to question everything I had believed in. I pulled away from the world as I knew it; I had no answers. Over four thousand days of a man’s life were gone and nothing I could do would ever change that.”
Supporters say the death penalty is supposed to provide justice to victims. Would it have delivered that in this case?
Jennifer now advocates around the country not only for ending the death penalty, but also for reforms to witness identification procedures that could have helped to prevent her mistaken identification.
A broader mission
Every exoneration is a reminder that the death penalty can endanger an innocent person. Exonerations also highlight that ending the death penalty is not the ultimate solution to all the system’s problems. That is why NYADP still exists and why EJUSA works in continued partnership with state groups even after they have ended the death penalty.
EJUSA believes that an effective criminal justice system should serve victims, defendants, and the public. That is why we invest in strategies that find common ground among disparate constituencies – including law enforcement, victims, and defendants. Until the system can stop pitting each party against one another in a zero-sum game, it will continue to fail.
Our partners at NYADP are implementing just such an approach. They are bringing together diverse groups to improve responses to violence overall – with an emphasis on reducing crime and meeting the needs of victims and their communities.
Reforms to eyewitness identification procedures can help to reduce wrongful convictions, so that disasters like those that happened to Frank Sterling and Ronald Cotton could be avoided. But the real prize is a society where acts of violence themselves are lessened. Clearly, there is still work to be done to make the system work better – beyond the death penalty.
