Last Thursday, death row exoneree Ray Krone and I spoke at Cleveland State Community College in Cleveland, Tennessee. During the event, Krone described his terrible ordeal in vivid detail to a captivated audience, and I described the systemic problems with the national death penalty. Several media outlets covered the event including the Chattanooga Times Free Press and the Cleveland Daily Banner.
The Cleveland Daily Banner’s Allen Mincey wrote,
Spending over 10 years in prison, on death row, for a crime he was eventually exonerated for has led Ray Krone to question the death penalty, but mostly to question why he had to go through the process of being what he calls falsely accused of that crime.
Shelby Bradley from the Chattanooga Times Free Press said,
Krone, an Air Force veteran and U.S. Postal Service worker with no criminal record, hung out at that bar. Someone there told police that Ancona was romantically interested in Krone, and soon investigators knocked on his door, saying he was her boyfriend.
Krone told them he barely knew the woman. They weren’t dating, and he definitely didn’t kill her.
But two days later, they took him to jail.
And he didn’t leave for another 10 years, three months and eight days.
That’s when DNA evidence proved another man committed the crime. Proved prosecutors were wrong. That two juries were wrong. That the expert who testified that Krone’s mouth matched the bite marks on the woman’s neck was wrong.
Both papers also covered CCATDP’s contributions to the event. Mincey wrote,
Joining Krone were Justin Phillips, associate director of Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, and Marc Hyden, National Advocacy coordinator for Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty, who is also a native of Cleveland.
“As a child, I remember being asked if I supported the death penalty while I was on the Prospect Elementary School playground in Cleveland, of all places. I responded, ‘Of course I support the death penalty’ because I came from a conservative Republican family,” Hyden said. “At the time, it just seemed like a foregone conclusion,” he added. “But that mindset is rapidly changing as conservatives like myself are applying our principles to the issue of capital punishment. We don’t trust the government to do many things properly, so why would we trust it to get the death penalty right?”
Bradley also said,
“I found I could no longer support the death penalty because it clashed with my principles of pro-life policies, fiscal responsibility and limited government,” Hyden told the crowd.