ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
It can be very difficult for people on death row to have their convictions overturned, even when there appears to be strong evidence in their favor or a chorus of voices supporting their innocence. For every eight executions in the U.S., only one death sentence is overturned. Jared Bennett reports on why that is.
JARED BENNETT, BYLINE: Brian Keith Moore was sentenced to death in 1984 for the murder of Virgil Harris, an ice cream shop owner in Louisville. Moore has maintained his innocence through it all.
BRIAN KEITH MOORE: You know, I've always felt like there's a light at the end of the tunnel. I'm going to get this thing off of me, you know?
BENNETT: Moore's attorneys are now trying to overturn his conviction based on new DNA evidence. But like thousands of others who have been sentenced to death, Moore faces an uphill battle.
ROBIN MAHER: We know we get it wrong. We don't know how often we get it wrong, but it's enough to be of real concern.
BENNETT: That's Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. There are lots of reasons an innocent person might be sentenced to death - convictions based on false confessions, accusations or misleading evidence, Mayer says. Once sentenced, she says defendants are up against a system designed to uphold that conviction. At that point, the law says, essentially, it's not enough to be innocent.
EMILY OLSON-GAULT: Innocence has not been recognized by the Supreme Court as a freestanding claim, meaning it alone is not enough.
BENNETT: Emily Olson-Gault is the director of the American Bar Association's Death Penalty Representation Project. She says defendants have to prove they didn't get a fair trial. That's a tough task. It can take decades and it takes a skilled team of lawyers. Access to an expert legal team is far from guaranteed. Some states, like Alabama, don't automatically provide an attorney for death penalty appeals. Most death penalty cases are handled by under-resourced public defenders. In rare cases, appeals might get help from nonprofits, like the Innocence Project. By that time, evidence may have disappeared, witnesses died and cases get murky.
MAHER: It's much, much harder to go back and correct the mistakes that have happened. Again, if you don't have a good lawyer who has the resources she needs, it's even more difficult.
BENNETT: According to a Gallup poll, most Americans still support the death penalty but have growing concerns about whether it's a fair punishment. Research shows elected officials, like prosecutors and judges, are less likely to overturn death penalty convictions during an election year, like this one, and the death penalty is unevenly applied, depending on where you are.
MAHER: Some states are much more zealous about their use of the death penalty than other states, so the very same crime in two different jurisdictions could yield very different punishments.
BENNETT: Executions are technically legal here in Kentucky, but a court ruling in 2010 put them on pause, so Moore, on Kentucky's death row, is in a strange sort of limbo. His health is failing. There have been times he's wanted to drop his appeals and get his execution over with.
MOORE: I'm going to end up paralyzed from my neck down because I can't get the medical treatment that I'm supposed to be getting, all right? And I'll be honest with you, if I'm paralyzed from my neck down, I don't want to be living.
BENNETT: That light at the end of the tunnel for Moore appears to be a long way off. For NPR News in Louisville, I'm Jared Bennett.
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