Executing the Wrong Man: 20 years after a man's execution, doubts over his guilt

Some legal experts say that since the death penalty's return in the 1970s, at least 38 executions have occurred despite indications of innocence or strong doubt of guilt. James Adams' is one such case. Edgar Brown, the deceased, and James Adams, the executed, were raised in distant worlds until their lives collided in Case No. 73-284 in St. Lucie County Circuit Court. Adams, the black, illiterate son of a Tennessee sharecropper, was executed for killing Brown, a wealthy, white rancher beaten to death with a fireplace poker on a crisp fall morning in 1973. Yet, 20 years after 2,000 volts of electricity took Adams' life, questions about his guilt still linger, long after the deaths of many witnesses from old age and assorted maladies, and years after crucial evidence was destroyed or lost. From the start, his case was clouded with accusations of flawed evidence-gathering and racial inequity.  There were no fingerprints taken from key items stolen from the victim's home, no eyewitnesses to the killing and no questions asked at trial about certain conflicting facts. Hair believed by appeal lawyers to belong to the killer was tested after the murder. It came from a black person. It wasn't from Adams. Justice came swiftly. Adams was tried, convicted and sentenced to death a mere four months after the murder inside the rancher's family estate. [more] link via Black Electorate.com