One hundred forty plus and still counting. Glenn Ford's release from a Louisiana prison on March 11th was the 140plus exoneration of a death row inmate in the United States since the 1970's. These are wrongful convictions where the individual was sentenced to death. It does not include the exoneration of those individuals, who were sentenced to any number of years up to life. This number does not give us any reliable indication as to the number of those persons, who have already been executed or remain on death row or continue to serve prison terms for crimes that they did not commit.

The press modestly notes these exonerations and frequently couches each case as an individual isolated miscarriage of justice. There is seldom, if ever, a suggestion that such cases might well be indicative of a flawed system. There is no serious discussion of systemic remedies to correct the miscarriages that are yet to be uncovered and to eliminate miscarriages that will continue to occur. A monetary settlement as directed by state law or awarded as the result of a separate court action is presented as the final resolution of the individual case. At times, actors in the criminal justice system will expound an argument of legal innocence versus factual innocence, that is, just because one can not legally prove, that you did do it, does not mean that you did not, in fact, do it. Is this to raise suspicion of the individual, who is exonerated, or to justify their own or their predecessor's prosecutorial behavior?

Why should we be concerned about such things? The facts of individual cases point out just how capricious the system can be. If it can happen to one of us, it may happen to anyone of us. Let us not forget. The system acts in our name: "The people rest their case..."