American Civil Liberties Union

After fifteen years on Louisiana's death row, Damon Thibodeaux was exonerated, the courts finally recognizing his innocence. He has moved to Minneapolis and is getting on with his life.

Watch the video here.

Damon's birthday and mine are two days apart, and for many years we would "celebrate" together while he was on death row. When I visit him this summer in Minneapolis to carry on our tradition, I expect we will have a MUCH better party.

According to a recent Inter-American Commission on Human Rights report on the death penalty in the Americas, the United States stands out as an outlier in a region that has come close to abolishing the death penalty. This report will be officially launched at a public event next Monday at the American Bar Association, moderated by the ACLU.

By Anthony Graves, who spent years in solitary confinement on Texas’ death row before being proven innocent in 2010. Yesterday he testified about the experience at a Senate subcommittee hearing on solitary confinement. His website is www.anthonybelieves.com.

On November 1, 1994, I heard the gavel fall and the judge announce, “Anthony Graves, I hereby sentence you to death by lethal injection.” The jury had already convicted me of murdering six people and burning down their house down to cover up the crime. I was completely innocent: they had the wrong guy. I was scared of dying for a crime I did not commit, but I believed in my innocence and hoped someone, somewhere would make it right.

One year ago, the ACLU's Amy Fettig stood before the United Nations Human Rights Council to condemn the use of solitary confinement in the United States. In a written statement also submitted to the Council last year, the ACLU expressed serious concern over the imposition of the death penalty across the nation. Sadly, we find ourselves this year once again at the same body, imploring the U.S. to live up to its human rights obligations with regard to these practices.