I randomly chose David Spence:
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David Spence (Texas): Spence, the prosecution argued, committed triple murder at the direction of Muneer Deeb, who the state claimed was a drug dealer. Deeb allegedly wanted several people dead and then presented evidence that linked the targets of the murder for hire to Deeb. The prosecution than argued that Spence killed the wrong people because he mistook them for the intended target. Someone other than Spence, Terry Harper, confessed to the crime on four separate occasions to four separate people including at least twice prior to the bodies being found. [fn 2] Under Texas evidentiary law at the time of trial the confession of a person not charged with the crime for which the accused is inadmissible and therefore the prosecution did not have to turn over the evidence. Following the trial, many, if not most, of the prosecution's jailhouse informants came forwarded and admitted either perjuring themselves or receiving some form of restitution for their testimony. Deeb, the person who supposedly hired Spence to do the killing, had his capital conviction reversed on appeal unrelated to innocence. At Deeb's new trial much of the evidence unearthed by Spence's legal team was used to obtain Deeb an exoneration. Spence was the -- execution under then Governor Bush. For more details see Bob Herbert's articles in the New York Times , as well as HBO's The Execution machine.
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This is a great example of what I mean when I refer to biased sources. First of all, receiving a plea does not mean someone lied. Several inmates admitted to being accomplices in order to be spared the death penalty. They are all serving life terms for admitting guilt. How many inmates would lie and admit guilt to spend the rest of their life in jail?
Spence was also considered to be a violent and vicious human being. He was convicted of various assaults and attempted murder througout his life. No less than a dozen people who knew him personally testified as to his vicious nature over many years. There was also an expert who testified that the bite marks on one body matched Spence.
Next I chose
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Jesse Tafero (Florida) Tafero was sentenced to death along with Sonia Jacobs for the murder of two policemen at a highway rest stop in 1976. A third co-defendant received a life sentence after pleading guilty and testifying against Jacobs and Tafero. A childhood friend and filmmaker, Micki Dickoff, then became interested in Jacobs case. Jacobs's conviction was overturned on a federal writ of habeas corpus in 1992. Following the discovery that the chief prosecution witness had failed a lie-detector test, the prosecutor accepted a plea in which Jacobs did not admit guilt, and she was immediately released. Jesse Tafero, whose conviction was based on much of the same highly questionable evidence, had been executed in 1990, two years before the evidence of innocence had been uncovered.
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The above completely leaves out several points. One being that Tafero had a lengthy criminal record and had served time in jail for assault and armed bank robbery. At the time that the trooper was killed they were in the middle of a large drug smuggling deal (large enough that they could have had a "normal life" afterwards according to his then wife). The person who testified against him and was also involved was a previous cellmate. The only question was whether or not Tafero was the one who shot the officer or whether it was Rhodes. Tests showed that at the very least he handled the gun which had been used to kill the officer (being involved in the commision of a crime resulting in death is enough to get the death penalty). After they killed the cop they took his car and fled. Tafero was seen in the car and later they ditched it, stole another car and were caught in that car at a roadblock.