Witness to Innocence - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Witness to Innocence, or WTI, is a non-profit organization based out of Philadelphia, PA dedicated to the effort of abolishing the American death penalty. WTI began as a project of The Moratorium Campaign, led by Jené O'Keefe. Kurt Rosenberg took over in 2005 with sponsorship from Sister Helen Prejean, Witness to Innocence is the only nationwide organization composed of exonerated former death row prisoners; men who were sentenced to death only to later have their innocence revealed. WTI supports these exonerated death row survivors through semi-annual retreats and by running a speakers' bureau.

Mission statement

Witness to Innocence works to end the death penalty by bringing to light the crisis of wrongful convictions in death sentencing in the United States. In addition, it seeks to provide organizational and peer-to-peer support to exonerated former death row prisoners and their loved ones. The organization, which is composed of, by and for exonerated former death row prisoners and their loved ones, works with national, state and local anti-death penalty groups to educate citizens and spur political action against the death penalty through the personal stories of those who have survived death row. Witness to Innocence’s priorities are to help end the death penalty by coordinating educational and political activities featuring those who have been most directly impacted by capital punishment and to assist these individuals and their loved ones in their transition to life after exoneration.

History

WTI began as a project of The Moratorium Campaign. In 2005, WTI became its own organization and was founded as the only national organization led by and composed of exonerated ex-death row prisoners and their loved ones. It held its first national gathering in Atlanta, Georgia for training, outreach, organizing, leadership, and speaking (TOOLS). The organization has since hosted similar gatherings in Wisconsin, North Carolina, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Alabama. The gatherings consist of organizational development, training workshops, educational activities, peer support sessions, and public anti-death penalty actions. Witness to Innocence also launched its Speakers’ Bureau in 2005, providing a platform of empowerment for its membership of exonerated death row survivors to share their stories with audiences around the country. Since its foundation, the WTI speakers’ bureau has reached over 25,000 people at nearly 500 events in 37 states.

Witness to Innocence has also played a collaborative role in the abolition of the New Jersey death penalty in 2007, the successful campaign against reinstating the death penalty in Wisconsin, and – most recently – the repeal of New Mexico’s death penalty in 2009.

Membership

Witness to Innocence utilizes the innocence list compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center

Death Penalty Information Center

The Death Penalty Information Center is a non-profit organization that focuses on disseminating studies and reports related to the death penalty by itself and others to the news media and general public...

, or DPIC, of people exonerated from death row. The criteria for inclusion on the DPIC innocence list states that, “Defendants must have been convicted, sentenced to death and subsequently either
a) their conviction was overturned ‘’AND’’
i) they were acquitted at re-trial or
ii) all charges were dropped
b) they were given an absolute pardon by the governor based on new evidence of innocence.”.

Proponents of the death penalty cast doubt on the validity of this list, partially because not all of the exonerated former prisoners were on death row at the time of exoneration. All of the 138 people currently on the DPIC list were at some time sentenced to death and were exonerated by the aforementioned legal standards.

News, Books, and Media

Witness to Innocence and its members have been featured in numerable publications and news articles, including Parade magazine , the Washington Examiner

Washington Examiner

The Washington Examiner is a free daily newspaper published in Springfield, Virginia, and distributed in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. It is owned by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz....

, the Daily Pennsylvanian , the Tucson Weekly

Tucson Weekly

The Tucson Weekly is an alternative newsweekly that was founded in 1984 by Douglas Biggers and Mark Goehring, and serves the Tucson, Arizona metropolitan area of about 900,000 residents. The paper is a member of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies...

, the Nashua Telegraph , the Salem Statesman Journal

Statesman Journal

The Statesman Journal is the major daily newspaper published in Salem, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1851, the Oregon Statesman later merged with the Capital Journal to form the current newspaper, the second-oldest in Oregon. The Statesman Journal is distributed in Salem, Keizer, and much of...

, the Austin American-Statesman

Austin American-Statesman

The Austin American-Statesman is the major daily newspaper for Austin, the capital city of Texas. It is an award-winning publication owned by Cox Enterprises. The Newspaper places focus on issues affecting Austin and the Central Texas region....

, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram is a major U.S. daily newspaper serving Fort Worth and the western half of the North Texas area known as the Metroplex. Its area of domination is checked by its main rival, The Dallas Morning News, which is published from the eastern half of the Metroplex. It is owned...

, and the North Carolina Star-News

Star-News

Star-News is the daily newspaper for Wilmington, North Carolina, and its surrounding area . It is owned by The New York Times Company....

.

WTI member and the 100th former death row prisoner to be exonerated, Ray Krone, was also featured on Good Morning America

Good Morning America

Good Morning America is an American morning news and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network; it debuted on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour aired between 2007 and 2008 exclusively on ABC News Now...

and an episode of Extreme makeover

Extreme Makeover

Extreme Makeover is a television program from ABC in which individuals volunteered to receive an extensive makeover in Hollywood. The show was created by television producer Howard Schultz. It first aired as a television special. It began airing in 2002 on Thursday nights at 8pm. A total of 55...

in its third season. The play and made-for cable television

Cable television

Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...

film, The Exonerated

The Exonerated

The Exonerated is a made-for-cable television film which dramatizes the true stories of six people who had been wrongfully convicted of murder and other offenses, placed on death row, and later exonerated and freed after serving varying years in prison...

, features Witness to Innocence members Delbert Tibbs (played by Delroy Lindo

Delroy Lindo

Delroy George Lindo is an English actor and theatre director. Lindo has been nominated for the Tony and Screen Actors Guild awards and has won a Satellite Award...

) and David Keaton (played by Danny Glover

Danny Glover

Danny Lebern Glover is an American actor, film director, and political activist. Glover is perhaps best known for his role as Detective Roger Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon film franchise.-Early life:...

) as two of its characters. Other projects that feature innocent former death row prisoners include John Grisham

John Grisham

John Ray Grisham, Jr. is an American lawyer and author, best known for his popular legal thrillers.John Grisham graduated from Mississippi State University before attending the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981 and practiced criminal law for about a decade...

’s first nonfiction work, The Innocent Man

The Innocent Man

The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town is a nonfiction book written by John Grisham, and his first outside the legal fiction genre. He tells the story of Ronald 'Ron' Keith Williamson of Ada, Oklahoma, a former minor league baseball player who was convicted in 1988 of the rape and...

, Frank Baumgartner’s The Decline of the Death Penalty and the Discovery of Innocence , and Stanley Cohen (sociologist)

Stanley Cohen (sociologist)

Professor Stanley Cohen is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics.-Life:Cohen was born in Johannesberg, South Africa in 1942. He grew up in South Africa and was an undergraduate at the University of Witwatersrand, studying Sociology and Social Work. He came to London in...

’s The Wrong Men: America’s epidemic of wrongful death row convictions .

Mission statement

History

Membership

News, Books, and Media

Links