My experience on death row. An innocent man tells his story
An innocent man who spent two years on death row in an Arizona jail will speak to staff and students at the Southampton Law School on Friday 2 November about his experience as a victim of gross miscarriage of justice and his continuing efforts to campaign against the use of the death penalty.
Ray Krone was sentenced to death in 1992 for the murder of a woman in Phoenix. Although he maintained his innocence, experts for the prosecution testified that bite-marks found on the victim's body matched a Styrofoam impression made by Ray and a jury convicted him.
In 2002, after having served more than ten years in prison, including two years on death row, Ray Krone was released from prison. He is the 100th former death row inmate freed because of innocence since the reinstatement of capital punishment in the United States in 1976 and the twelfth death row inmate whose innocence has been proven through post-conviction DNA testing. Before his arrest, Ray had no previous criminal record, he had been honourably discharged from the military, and had been working in the postal service for seven years. He now helps other 'exonerees' share their stories of unjust sentences and narrow escapes with state-sanctioned death penalties.
This talk has been organised as a joint Hampshire Universities Innocence Projects' sponsored event. Senior lecturer Dr Jamie Maclean says: "Ray's visit offers us a unique opportunity for insight into the causes and effects of miscarriages of justice and the continuing debate over the use of capital punishment."
Students at Southampton can volunteer to work for the Innocence Project, which centres upon the study of wrongful criminal convictions. They are involved in the objective and independent investigation of real criminal cases of prisoners who maintain their factual innocence but have exhausted their legal appeals.
For further information see the events page .