In a North Carolina Courtroom on Tuesday, a judge overturned the death sentence and conviction of the state’s longest serving death row inmate. Henry McCollum walked free after DNA evidence linked the crime to another person. He had been on death row for over three decades – since he was 19 years old.
McCollum’s brother, Leon Brown was also set free. He was 15 at the time of his arrest and has been serving a life sentence since the Supreme Court outlawed the execution those who were juveniles at the time of their crime. Both McCollum and Brown are mentally disabled, and each signed coerced confessions to the crime.
Had it not been for unrelated delays in executions in North Carolina, they would likely have been executed, before this evidence was revealed by the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission.
Read the Raleigh News & Observer’s coverage of the case here.
Photo credit: Chuck Liddy/The News & Observe, used with permission.
