Image Credit: Jon Crane & informadvisory.com
The Tennessee Conservative [By David Seal] –
Ray Krone once supported the death penalty. Then he was wrongly convicted, sentenced to death, then later exonerated with DNA and other evidence. Krone will be one of the speakers at the media conference on Thursday at the Cordell Hull Building in Nashville.
According to a statement made by the U.S. Campaign to End the Death Penalty, Krone fought for exoneration. In 2002, with the help of attorney Alan Simpson, he convinced an appeals court in Arizona that DNA found at the murder scene indicated the guilt of another man. When prosecutors dropped the charges that April, Ray became the 100th person exonerated from death row since the reinstatement of capital punishment in the United States in 1976.
Ray Krone co-founded Witness to Innocence with Sister Helen Prejean in 2003. Before his exoneration in 2002, Ray spent more than 10 years in Arizona prisons, including nearly three years on death row, for a murder he did not commit.
Krone now resides in Tennessee.
Several Tennessee residents who were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death for crimes that they did not commit will join with the Tennessee Innocence Project in Nashville on Thursday, April 30, to call on Governor Lee to issue a stay of execution for Tony Carruthers and to direct the Tennessee Attorney General to allow the DNA testing in his case to proceed.
“Without the court ordering the DNA testing in my case, I would not be standing here today,” “If untested evidence like DNA exists that could save an innocent person’s life, we have a duty to test it.” – said Ray Krone, the nation’s 100th death row exoneree and resident of Newport, Tennessee.
Tennessee Innocence Project Executive Director Jason Gichner said, “I have seen far too many instances where innocent people are convicted for crimes that they didn’t commit. When a person is sentenced to death, the stakes are too high to get it wrong. DNA testing is both accurate and efficient. No execution should ever go forward when there is evidence available to test that can establish innocence.”
Speakers include Krone and members of Witness to Innocence, an organization created by and for death row exonerees, empowering them to tell their stories and work for change in the criminal legal system. All the speakers at the Media Conference live in Tennessee.
Event organizer Jon Crane said that speakers will share their experiences of wrongful convictions and the need to exhaust every available avenue to ensure that an innocent person is not executed.
Specifics of the Media Conference are as follows.
Press Conference with Death Row Exonerees and Innocence Experts
Thursday, April 30, 11:00 a.m. Local Time (CST)
Cordell Hull State Office Building, Press Room, 425 Rep. John Lewis Way N, Nashville
For those not able to attend, the event will be livestreamed at https://tinyurl.com/WTI-Carruthers
Organizers state that “Mr. Carruthers was convicted and sentenced to death in Shelby County in 1996 with no physical evidence connecting him to the crime. His conviction was based on the testimony of informants, including one paid by the state who later recanted his statement. For decades, the state denied that this informant was paid and actively hid that information from the jury.
Mr. Carruthers was also forced to represent himself at his capital trial resulting in a proceeding so riddled with errors that his co-defendant was granted a new trial.
There are several fingerprints and DNA evidence that do not match Mr. Carruthers, but they were never compared to a suspect identified by his co-defendant. Mr. Carruthers’ legal team has requested testing from the courts.”
* The content of this article was constructed from information provided by Jon Crane at https://enddeathpenalty.org/ and from the Tennessee Conservative News exclusive interview with exoneree Ray Krone.
About the Author: David Seal is a retired Jefferson County educator, recognized artist, local businessman, 917 Society Volunteer, and past Chairman of the Jefferson County Republican Party. He has also served Jefferson County as a County Commissioner and is a citizen lobbyist for the people on issues such as eminent domain, property rights, education, and broadband accessibility on the state level. David is also a 2024 winner of The Tennessee Conservative Flame Award & has received an accolade from the Institute For Justice for successfully lobbing the TN legislature to protect property rights. David can be reached at david@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
