Last Week, Texas Executed 2 Men in 24 Hours

Last week, two Texans were executed by lethal injection within a 24-hour period. From conviction to death, neither of them wavered in their proclamations of innocence. One’s last words were “I’m not the one who killed Christina.” The other did not give last words; instead choosing to lie silently with his eyes closed, waiting for the lethal cocktail of drugs to take effect.

Their names were Troy Clark and Daniel Acker. They were the 17th and 18th men put to death in the United States this year.

Mr. Clark alleges that he was set up by his former girlfriend, who at first informed police that another person was responsible for the victim’s death, and then later gave a statement saying that she had in fact killed the victim, and that Mr. Clark was not involved. She eventually implicated Mr. Clark, in exchange for a 20-year sentence.

Mr. Acker was convicted of strangling his then-girlfriend in a moving car. He maintains that she jumped out of his moving car during an argument — as she had done before — and died accidentally, likely having been struck and killed by a passing car. Mr. Acker’s legal team filed multiple appeals saying that his trial was tainted by the misleading, erroneous forensic testimony. In 2011, in an evidentiary hearing, the prosecution changed their story: instead of being strangled, they argued, Mr. Acker had pushed her from the car. “This is a real tragedy,” Mr. Acker’s defense lawyer, A. Richard Ellis, told the Houston Chronicle last week. “Daniel Acker is innocent, this was a tragic accident not a homicide, yet the courts are not listening.”

Texas holds the dubious distinction of holding back-to-back executions more than once: the last time was in 2012, when the state put to death Ramon Hernandez and Preston Hughes. Hughes also professed his innocence with his final words.

Since 1973, 163 people have been exonerated from death row, including 6 each from Georgia and Alabama, the states in which the Southern Center for Human Rights works. There is no way to tell how many of more than 1,450 people executed in the U.S. since 1976 may have been innocent. Courts do not generally entertain claims of innocence once the defendant is dead.

As with any human-run system, the criminal legal system is fallible. In at least 163 instances, many people – including juries, judges, and the general public – were so convinced that someone was guilty of a heinous crime that they sentenced them to be put to death. And in at least 163 instances, we were wrong. The fallibility of the system is not a fixable problem. The only fix is to end the death penalty.