National Geographic

In Command From Afar Angela Magee of Malin Space Science Systems works on instructions for a camera on Curi- osity, which landed on Mars in 2012. For now, the Martian surface is a place humans can explore only remotely. Scientists must program command sequences to tell their robotic avatars what to do, where to go, and which hazards to avoid. by the red planet. It captured the first close-up a glove into its alien soil or brush dust from their images of the Martian surface in black and visored faces; remotely guided rovers must do white, transforming the rich pop culture play- the work instead. ground into a grainy, cratered landscape. Seen at last, the planet’s arid sterility was a stark disap- On a Tuesday morning in October, I’ve pointment. But it didn’t take long for the idea of turned on videoconferencing to talk to the SETI life on Mars to rekindle in human imaginations. Institute’s Cabrol, who is across the continent in California. Instead of a bookshelf, artfully I N A S E N S E , the isolation of the COVID-19 arranged, she has a vision of Mars as her backdrop. pandemic has given me a feel for what work- It’s an expansive vista, with dark, boulder-strewn days must be like for Mars scientists. I usually peaks straddling rusty plains and distant ridge- travel extensively, getting my notebooks dirty lines in the orange haze. That’s fitting, I think, as I chase stories across deserts, sweltering for a scientist who’s spent decades immersing jungles, and sea ice. Currently, Mars explorers herself indirectly in Martian landscapes. spend their lives trying to understand a place that will come into focus only through a lens or Then Cabrol shifts. Tire treads, trucks, and a on a computer screen. They won’t soon plunge cluster of bright orange tents appear in the fore- ground. Instead of staring at Mars, I’m seeing an image of one of Cabrol’s field sites in the Chilean O U R O B S E S S I O N W I T H M A R S 57

Undulating Vista 2015 Dunes ripple across the landscape in a panorama made using NASA’s Curiosity rover. The dunes appear dark because of morning shadows and the color of minerals in the sand. MOSAIC OF 14 IMAGES BY NASA/ JPL/MALIN SPACE SCIENCE SYSTEMS A Rocky Expanse 2016 This 360-degree panorama captures the eerily Earthlike quality of a Martian midafternoon in Gale crater, the Curiosity rover’s landing site. MOSAIC OF 138 IMAGES BY NASA/ JPL/MALIN SPACE SCIENCE SYSTEMS Getting Sharper 2019 The Curiosity team made this high-resolution panorama from the side of Mount Sharp, a mound inside Gale crater, by assembling more than a thousand images taken over four days. MOSAIC OF 1,139 IMAGES BY NASA/JPL/ MALIN SPACE SCIENCE SYSTEMS



Altiplano. For decades she has scoured this high soils were devoid of life, and at least one astron- desert for Mars-like environments, looking for life omer—Carl Sagan—wasn’t ready to completely on volcanic peaks and in high lakes and trying to abandon the idea of even larger life-forms. imagine how a robotic avatar might accomplish the same task, tens of millions of miles away. Just in case Martians were nocturnal, “for a long time, we had a very high-intensity lamp Cabrol and other modern scientists focused on planned to be on Viking so that we could take Mars owe a debt to Mariner 9, the first spacecraft pictures at night,” recalls Gentry Lee, a sci- to orbit Mars in 1971. At first, Mariner couldn’t ence fiction author and chief engineer at JPL. see through a massive planetwide dust storm. To Sagan’s disappointment, the Viking team “Mars was still trying, until the last minute, to decided to remove the lamp from both landers, keep a veil of mystery,” Cabrol says. But as the and if you had pressed Sagan about whether he sand settled, the camera spied the summits of truly expected to see Martians wandering by he’d the humongous Tharsis Montes, a trio of vol- probably demur, Lee says. canoes dwarfed only by neighboring Olympus Mons. To the east was mammoth Valles Mar- The Viking experiments found no Martian ineris, a rift valley that resembles Arizona’s microbes and no footprints in the sand. Instead, Grand Canyon, only nine times longer. they unveiled hints of perchlorates in the soil, compounds that can destroy organic molecules Most importantly, in the thousands of photo- and potentially erase any traces of carbon-based graphs taken by Mariner 9, scientists saw ancient life. “So, you couldn’t even look for the bodies, river-carved valleys, floodplains, channels, and if you will,” Zurek says. deltas. They also picked up chemical clues of water ice. These were all signs that flowing water But Viking did send back images of ruddy, once sculpted exotic Martian landscapes. rock-strewn plains that looked like they could have been snapped from any arid place on Earth. “The geologic evidence is overwhelming that New views of Mars kept flooding in, as NASA the climate was very different than it is today,” landed rover after rover on the planet’s desolate says Ramses Ramirez, who studies the ancient surface: Pathfinder in 1997, then the twin Spirit Martian climate at the Earth-Life Science Insti- and Opportunity rovers in 2004, followed by the tute in Tokyo, Japan. That realization changed Curiosity rover in 2012. Each vehicle arrived out- the course of Mars exploration. “It was so much fitted with increasingly sophisticated cameras, more profound than all the folklore we could and together they sent back roughly 700,000 have in mind,” Cabrol says, “and another adven- images. Now when we see those rover tracks in ture started. The scientific one.” the soil or we see the robot selfies showing them perched on a colorful crater rim, we can more Knowing that ancient Mars may have been a easily imagine ourselves in their treads. somewhat Earthlike abode ignited a new set of questions in planetary evolution, and it reinvig- “Once you land, there’s this whole evocation orated interest in finding out whether life may of what it means to be a human in this place,” have once existed on Mars or, with luck, still did. says Yale University anthropologist Lisa Messeri, “I think it’s fascinating that we’re still dealing who studies how space-based imagery affects with the same themes as Percival Lowell would our perception of worlds. recognize,” says Rich Zurek, chief scientist of the Mars Program Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion A B O U T A N E I G H T- H O U R D R I V E from Istanbul, Laboratory (JPL). “Just ... no canals.” Lake Salda in southwest Turkey is a local haven. Dark volcanic rocks tumble toward the brilliant NASA quickly followed Mariner 9 with an even white sandy beach ringing the shore. Clear aqua- more ambitious mission. In 1976 humans finally marine waters become a deep abyssal blue near were able to gaze at the red planet from eye level the lake’s center, where the bottom is hundreds when the twin Viking landers touched down in of feet down. It’s an almost perfect modern the northern hemisphere. By that time, scien- analog for Jezero crater, the spot where NASA’s tists already knew vegetation didn’t seasonally Perseverance rover is targeting its search for carpet Mars; those shifting shadows were the signs of ancient life. work of dust storms whipping up volcanic sand. They also already knew that water didn’t flow “The locals call it the Maldives of Turkey,” says abundantly over its surface anymore. Brad Garczynski, a graduate student in planetary science at Purdue University who traveled to the But they didn’t know whether the planet’s 201460 N A T I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

COSMIC BUDGETING $28 Billion People are fascinated by two big questions about Mars: Mars 2020 Did life ever exist on the red planet, and could humans The Perseverance rover uses survive there now? Satisfying our curiosity takes time and a chassis similar to Curiosity’s resources. But mission by mission, with ever larger invest- ments of capital, NASA and its partners are using past but has more complex successes and failures as scaffolding for the next big leaps. instruments, including the first helicopter on Mars. InSight CHANGING FOCUS Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission Since the 1960s NASA’s planetary science budget has reflected priorities beyond the moon. Mars’s share The Curiosity rover Mars Science 21 B has grown, but total investment in the planet since then discovers carbon- Laboratory has been less than 2 percent of NASA’s total spending. bearing minerals (Curiosity) and measures 1960 70 80 90 2000 10 2020 radiation levels. $3.5 billion 100% RESEARCH/ OTHER MARS OUTER Phoenix MOON PLANETS Mars Lander SMALL Mars BODIES Reconnaissance Orbiter VENUS MERCURY Mars is found to Mars Exploration have a warm and Rovers - Spirit & 0 watery ancient past. Opportunity Mars Odyssey $1.6 billion MPL/MCO 14 B Mars Pathfinder Technology for the rover Mars Global Surveyor Sojourner’s cameras now Mars Observer makes panoramic smart- phone photos possible. $1.7 billion One of some Viking 1 & 2 The ‘80s see a $26.2 Billion 50,000 images lull in exploration $7.1 billion after the Viking IN MARS MISSIONS from Viking missions. sparked theories Getting to Mars is a challenge. of a face on Mars. The Soviets saw nearly all their It was just a mesa. missions fail; more recently, Russia’s, Japan’s, and China’s missions failed. But India and Europe have active 7B Mars orbiters, and NASA’s success rate is more than 70 percent. COSTS INCLUDE LAUNCHES AND ARE ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION TO 2019 DOLLARS. Mission spacecraft Flyby Lander Orbiter Rover Outlined symbols represent failed missions Mariner 8 & 9 The first craft to orbit another Mission planet, Mariner 9 sent back images $1.3 billion of canyons, volcanoes, and moons. Mariner 6 & 7 Budget Launch $1.3 billion Mariner 3 & 4 End Failed $1.1 billion 1960 70 80 90 2000 10 2020 MANUEL CANALES, NGM STAFF; PATRICIA HEALY. SOURCE: NASA; PLANETARY SCIENCE BUDGET DATASET, COMPILED BY CASEY DREIER FOR THE PLANETARY SOCIETY

site in 2019. “You could imagine yourself as a Martian little microbe tanning yourself on the shoreline Field Test of Jezero.” Successfully operating a rover on Mars takes It’s dry now, but the sculpted terrain suggests lots of practice; here that Jezero once was filled with a deep, large cra- on Earth, scientists use ter lake fed by flowing rivers. More than 3.5 billion locations that mimic years ago, water likely rushed into Jezero from the Martian terrains to north and west, depositing layers of sediments in work out various kinks fanning deltas near the crater walls. Over time, in their procedures. the crater filled and flooded, eventually sending In February 2020 a dry water back out through a breach to the east. lake bed in Nevada stood in for Mars From orbit, spacecraft have identified clays as JPL researchers and carbonate minerals near Jezero’s deltas that Raymond Francis require water to form. Lake Salda’s white sands (standing) and similarly are made of busted-up carbonates called Marshall Trautman microbialites, rocky structures made when dis- worked with remote solved carbon dioxide forms carbonate ions that camera operators react with other elements, such as magnesium, to test equipment and precipitate rapidly, trapping organic com- designed for the pounds. On Earth this process forms layered Perseverance rover. structures that preserve the oldest evidence of terrestrial microbial life, dating back 3.5 billion about life on its surface. From canals to vege- years. Scientists are hoping that Jezero’s carbon- tation to hotly debated hints of fossils in Mars ates did the same, and that they trapped anything meteorites, the red planet repeatedly has paved that once inhabited the lake or its ancient shores. over our hopes with bleak, barren realities. So why, then, are we sending yet another spacecraft “It’s one of the reasons we’re excited about to look for life on Mars—not even for organisms Jezero crater,” says Purdue University planetary that are alive today but for traces of organisms scientist Briony Horgan. It’s also why Garczynski that may have flourished billions of years ago? is practicing being a Mars rover in Turkey: He’s looking for the most likely places for bio- “We. Haven’t. Looked. For. Life. On. Mars,” signatures to be preserved, and he’s figuring Cabrol asserts, getting animated. “If you don’t out what they’d look like to Perseverance. To do have a good understanding of the environment, that, he collected nearly a hundred pounds of how are you going to be able to decrypt or extract samples from Lake Salda and flew them home a life signal out of that?!” Even Viking, she says, in a suitcase. which was purportedly a life-finding mis- sion, carried an experiment that was designed Like Garczynski, Perseverance will be collect- without enough knowledge of the Martian envi- ing rocks for a return trip, although maybe just ronment to reasonably succeed. 450 grams, at most. As the rover wheels around Jezero, its onboard cameras—which see Mars in multiple wavelengths—will help it identify the most tantalizing rocks to collect. The rover will cache those samples and leave them on Mars, where they’ll wait for a ride home on a future spacecraft. Once they arrive in Earth-based lab- oratories, scientists will use the best possible instruments to read the record of Mars’s ancient climate and tease out any possible signs of life. Or maybe, with luck, Perseverance’s advanced cameras will be the first to glimpse evidence of fossilized Martians. I F A N Y T H I N G , though, Mars has taught human- kind that we often fall prey to wishful thinking 62 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

SAM MOLLEUR, NASA/JPL But those ancient landscapes are still there, from us,” he says. “It’s very, very tenacious.” preserving a record of the planet’s infancy and In a way, that stubbornness is perhaps the a time when life could have thrived in a slightly wetter period, blanketed by a thicker atmosphere. most blatant manifestation of our desire for companionship, a longing for communion, a “We know the canals don’t exist, we know there need to know that we are not alone in the uni- is no pyramid on Mars, no alien civilization, no verse. Humans, for the most part, need other Tupperware,” Cabrol says. But if we do find that humans to survive, and maybe that’s true on a some prebiotic chemistry littered the Martian planetary scale as well. surface, we may learn something about how life evolves on any rocky shores—including our own. “We are not a solitary people,” Weir says. “At a macroscopic level, we—humanity—we don’t What if Perseverance finds no evidence for want to be alone.” j Martian fossils or even signs that places like Jezero could have been inhabited? Will we ever be Contributing writer Nadia Drake last wrote for able to give up on the idea of life on Mars? Proba- National Geographic about how spaceflight bly not, admits David Grinspoon, senior scientist changes the way astronauts think about Earth. at the Planetary Science Institute. “It’s very hard California-based photographers Craig Cutler and to kill the idea that Mars is somehow hiding life Spencer Lowell enjoy bringing complex science stories to life. O U R O B S E S S I O N W I T H M A R S 63

WE JUST CAN’T GET 1570s “Mars and Venus United by Love” A joining of oppo- sites: Cupid uses a special love knot to bind the Roman god Mars to the goddess Venus in a painting by Paolo Veronese. PAINTING BY PAOLO VERONESE (PAOLO 1898 The War of 1906 Lowell’s Canals CALIARI), METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, the Worlds As he drew on his maps (above) and JOHN STEWART KENNEDY FUND, 1910 A witness recounts described in a 1906 an epic battle book, Percival Lowell believed Mars was a between Martians dying world covered and Earthlings in in irrigation canals. H.G. Wells’s now notorious thriller. LOWELL OBSERVATORY ARCHIVES CHRONICLE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO 1965 Mariner 4 When this spacecraft 1967 Sagan’s Vision flew by Mars, it For National snapped images of Geographic, Carl a planet that looked Sagan imagined disappointingly like radiation-resistant the moon: cratered Martians shielded by and sterile, without glassy shells, eating any signs of alien life. cabbage-like plants that fold up at night. NASA PAINTING BY DOUGLAS S. CHAFFEE, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC IMAGE COLLECTION 1976 Mars Vikings 1996 Mars Attacks! NASA’s Viking Directed by Tim Bur- mission included two orbiters and two ton, this film poked landers, the first to fun at 1950s science take high-resolution fiction movies. In it, images of Mars from murderous Martians its desolate surface. terrorize Earth until they’re defeated by NASA a country song. PICTORIAL PRESS LTD/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO 64

ENOUGH OF MARS 1918 A Trip 1939 “The Man to Mars From Mars” Like many early Drawn by Frank R. 20th-century depic- Paul for Fantastic tions, this Danish Adventures, this silent film focused Martian is telepathic on Mars’s supposed and can retract inhabitants—in this his eyes and nose case, benevolent to protect them vegetarians. from freezing. PICTORIAL PRESS LTD/ALAMY CHRONICLE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO STOCK PHOTO 1954 Full Color 1951 Flight to Mars Astronomer E.C. In this sci-fi drama, Slipher took this image from South scientists arrive Africa; he published on Mars to find a his Photographic planet populated Story of Mars (1905- by a subterranean, 1961) in 1962. dying race similar to humans—who E.C. SLIPHER, LOWELL may be plotting a OBSERVATORY ARCHIVES desperate invasion of Earth. PICTORIAL PRESS LTD/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO 2015 The Martian 2019 Starship In Andy Weir’s If SpaceX CEO Elon futuristic survival tale, astronaut Mark Watney, Musk has his way, played by Matt Damon, a version of the is abandoned on Mars after crewmates retro-looking launch mistake him for dead. vehicle seen here being built in Texas will one day shuttle humans to the moon, Mars, and beyond. LOREN ELLIOTT, GETTY IMAGES GENRE FILMS/INTERNATIONAL TRADERS/MID ATLANTIC FILMS/20TH CENTURY/ALBUM, ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Since 1973, more than 8,700 people in the U.S. have been sentenced to death. More than 1,500 have been executed. 182 of those sent to death row actually were INNOCENT These are stories of justice gone wrong. BY PHILLIP MORRIS | PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARTIN SCHOELLER

Albert Burrell, 13 years on death row 67

Derrick Jamison SENTENCED IN H A M I LT O N C O U N T Y, O H 20 YEARS IN PRISON, ALL ON DEATH ROW; EXONERATED IN 2005 Derrick Jamison was arrested for the 1984 robbery and murder of a Cincinnati bartender. He was convicted based on false testimony from one of the real perpe- trators of the crime, who testified against Jamison in exchange for a lesser sentence. He was scheduled for exe- cution six times but each time received a stay, the last one 90 minutes before he was to die. In 2000 a judge ordered a new trial. His conviction was overturned, and all charges were dismissed in 2005. Jamison, now 60, educates others about the flaws of the U.S. jus- tice system and encour- ages changes to it. PREVIOUS PHOTO Albert Burrell U N I O N C O U N T Y, L A 13 YEARS IN PRISON, ALL ON DEATH ROW; EXONERATED IN 2001 Burrell, now 66, came within 17 days of his scheduled execution in Louisiana before his attorneys won a stay in 1996. His conviction for first-degree murder in a double homicide was overturned. He was granted a new trial after a judge ruled that prosecutors had misled the jury and failed to turn over exculpatory evidence. After the state concluded that no credible evidence linked Burrell to the murders, he was released. FIGURES ARE ROUNDED TO THE NEAREST YEAR AND DON’T INCLUDE TIME IN JAIL PRE-SENTENCING.

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Ron Keine BERNALILLO C O U N T Y, N M 2 YEARS IN PRISON. ALL ON DEATH ROW; EXONERATED IN 1976 Ron Keine, center, 73, was one of four men wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death for the kidnap- ping, rape, and murder of a University of New Mexico student in 1974. The Detroit News found that prosecu- tors coerced testimony from a key witness, a motel housekeeper who later recanted her statement. Keine was released after a murder weapon was traced to a drifter who admitted to the killing. A pros- ecutor was disbarred and three detectives were fired because of their actions.

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A 63-year-old A JA M U, T H E N N A M E D Ronnie Bridgeman, was man named found guilty primarily because of the testimony Kwame Ajamu of a 13-year-old boy, who said he saw Bridgeman lives walking and another young male violently attack the distance from my salesman on a city street corner. Not a shred house in a suburb of evidence, forensic or physical, connected of Cleveland, Ohio. Bridgeman to the slaying. He had no prior crimi- Ajamu was nal record. Another witness testified that Bridge- sentenced to man was not on the street corner when Franks death in 1975 for was killed. Yet mere months after his arrest, the the murder of high school junior was condemned to die. Harold Franks, a money order It would be publicly revealed 39 years later salesman on that the boy who testified against him had Cleveland’s east immediately tried to recant his statement. But side. Ajamu was 17 Cleveland homicide detectives told the boy when he was they would arrest and charge his parents with convicted. perjury if he changed his story, according to his later court testimony. Ajamu was released on parole in 2003 after 27 years in prison, but the state of Ohio would not declare him innocent of the murder for nearly another 12 years, when the boy’s false statement and police misconduct were revealed in a related court hearing. I interviewed Ajamu and others who repre- sent vastly different backgrounds but share a similar, soul-crushing burden: They were sen- tenced to death after being convicted of crimes they didn’t commit. The daily paths they travel as former death- row inmates are every bit as daunting, terrifying, and confusing as the burden of innocence that once taunted them. The post-traumatic stress faced by a wrongly convicted person who has awaited execution by the government doesn’t dissipate simply because the state frees the inmate, apologizes, or even provides financial compensation—which often is not the case. The lesson is as charged as superbolt light- ning: An innocent man or woman sentenced to die is the perfect witness against what many see as the inherent immorality and barbarity of continuing capital punishment. It’s a particularly poignant lesson in a nation that executes people at a rate outpaced by few others—and where factors such as a defen- dant’s or victim’s race, low income, or inability to counter overly zealous police and prosecu- tors can put the accused at increased risk of a wrongful conviction that could lead to execu- tion. Race is a particularly strong determinant: As of April 2020, Black people made up more than 41 percent of those on death row but only 13.4 percent of the U.S. population. 72 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

Kwame Now 63, Kwame Ajamu, himself, Bridgeman was statement had been Ajamu who changed his name condemned to die. His false. That testimony from Ronnie Bridgeman sentence was reduced helped exonerate three C U YA H O G A C O U N T Y, O H while in prison, was to life in prison in 1978, people: Ajamu, his convicted in 1975 of and he was paroled brother, Wiley Bridge- 27 YEARS IN PRISON, murdering a Cleveland in 2003, but he lived man, and their friend 2 OF THOSE ON DEATH ROW; salesman based solely under the cloud of his Ricky Jackson. Bridge- EXONERATED IN 2014 on the testimony conviction. In 2014 the man and Jackson were of a 13-year-old boy. witness testified in finally released after Though just a teen court that his original 39 years in prison. I N N O C E N T 73

During the past three decades, groups such The high court’s ruling countered a history of as the Innocence Project have shed light on how executing juveniles that began long before the dangerously fallible the U.S. justice system can United States was conceived. The first known be, particularly in capital cases. DNA testing case of a juvenile executed in the British colo- and scrutiny of actions by police, prosecutors, nies was in 1642 in the Plymouth Colony, where and public defenders have helped exonerate Thomas Granger, 17, was hanged. His alleged 182 people from death row since 1972, and as offense was sodomy with livestock. of December 2020 had led to more than 2,700 exonerations overall since 1989. In the earliest days of the nation, even younger children were subject to the harshest of all Each of the former death-row inmates I inter- judicial penalties. Hannah Ocuish, 12, a Native viewed belongs to an organization called Witness American girl, was hanged in New London, to Innocence. Based in Philadelphia since 2005, Connecticut, in 1786 for murder. Two enslaved WTI is a nonprofit led by exonerated death-row boys—a 12-year-old convicted of murder and a inmates. Its primary goal is to see the death 13-year-old convicted of arson—were hanged in penalty abolished in the U.S. by shifting public Virginia in 1787 and 1796, respectively. opinion on the morality of capital punishment. For most of the next 200 years, age was ignored During the past 15 years, WTI’s outreach tar- as a factor in sentencing. Juveniles and adults geting the U.S. Congress, state legislatures, policy alike were tried, convicted, and executed based advisers, and academics has been credited with on their crimes, not their maturity. Available helping to abolish the death penalty in several criminal records don’t cite the age of the exe- states, though it remains legal in 28 states, the cuted regularly until around 1900. By 1987, when federal government, and the U.S. military. In the U.S. Supreme Court first agreed to consider 2020, 17 people were executed in the U.S., 10 by the constitutionality of the death penalty for the federal government. It was the first time more minors, some 287 juvenile executions had been prisoners were executed by the federal govern- documented. When the Supreme Court ruled in ment than by all of the states combined. 1978 that Ohio’s death penalty law violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual “I was abducted by the state of Ohio when I punishment, as well as the 14th Amendment’s was 17 years old,” Ajamu began our conversation requirement of equal protection under the law, when we met on my backyard patio. Ajamu’s death sentence was reduced to life in prison. Still, he lingered behind bars for another “I was a child when I was sent to prison to be quarter of a century, when he was released on killed,” Ajamu, now chairman of WTI’s board, parole. He wouldn’t be exonerated until 2014, told me. “I did not understand what was hap- after a crusading reporter for a Cleveland mag- pening to me or how it could happen. At first I azine and the Ohio Innocence Project helped begged God for mercy, but soon it dawned on me unravel the lie that had sent Ajamu to death row. that there would be no mercy coming.” “There is a wide array of blunders that can The day Ajamu arrived at the Southern Ohio cause erroneous convictions in capital cases,” Correctional Facility, a maximum-security said Michael Radelet, a death penalty scholar prison in rural Ohio, he was escorted to a cell- and sociologist at the University of Colorado block filled with condemned men. At the end of Boulder. “Police officers might secure a coerced death row was a room that held Ohio’s electric or otherwise false confession. Prosecutors occa- chair. Before the guards put him in his cell, they sionally suppress exculpatory evidence. Some- made a point of walking him past that room. times there is a well-intentioned but mistaken eyewitness identification. Most common is “One of the guards really wanted me to see perjury by prosecution witnesses.” that chair,” Ajamu recalled. “I’ll never forget his words: ‘That’s gonna be your hot date.’ ” Few opponents of capital punishment sum- marize the case against state-sponsored execu- From the time Ajamu was sentenced to die tions more bluntly than Sister Helen Prejean, until 2005—when the U.S. Supreme Court co-founder of WTI and author of Dead Man ruled that executing juveniles violated the Walking, the best-selling book that inspired Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual pun- the 1995 film of the same title, starring Susan ishment—the nation executed 22 people who Sarandon and Sean Penn. were convicted of a crime committed when they were under age 18, according to the Death Pen- alty Information Center (DPIC). 74 N A T I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

The plainspoken nun described how her ani- BLACK PEOPLE MAKE mus toward the death penalty became personal UP MORE THAN 41 by recalling her fear of a fairly routine dental experience she underwent years ago. PERCENT OF DEATH- ROW INMATES BUT “I had to have a root canal on a Monday morn- ONLY 13.4 PERCENT OF ing,” she told me. “The whole week before that THE U.S. POPULATION. root canal, I dreamt about it. As the appointment got closer, the more nervous I became.” U.S. Postal Service, a job he planned to keep until retirement. She continued, “Now imagine anticipating your scheduled appointment to be put to death. That career dream—and his life—were The six people that I’ve accompanied onto death abruptly shattered in December 1991, when Kim row all had the same nightmare. The guards were Ancona, a 36-year-old bar manager, was found dragging them from their cells. They cry for help stabbed to death in the men’s bathroom of a and struggle. Then they wake up and realize that Phoenix lounge that Krone frequented. they are still in their cells. They realize it’s just a dream. But they know that one day the guards Police immediately zeroed in on Krone as a are really going to come for them, and it won’t be suspect after learning that he’d given Ancona, a dream. That’s the torture. It’s a torture that as whom he knew casually, a ride to a Christmas of yet our Supreme Court refuses to recognize party a few days earlier. The day after her body as a violation of the Constitution’s prohibition was discovered, Krone was ordered to provide against cruel and unusual punishments.” blood, saliva, and hair samples. A dental cast of his teeth also was created. The next day he was More than 70 percent of the world’s nations arrested and charged with aggravated murder. have rejected the death penalty in either law or practice, according to the DPIC. Of the places Investigators said the distinctive misalign- where Amnesty International has recorded ment of Krone’s teeth matched bite marks on the recent executions, the U.S.—which has the high- victim’s body. Media reports would soon deri- est incarceration rates in the world—was one sively refer to Krone as the “snaggletooth” killer. of just 13 countries that held executions every As was the case with Ajamu, there was no forensic one of the past five years. Americans’ support evidence linking Krone to the crime. DNA was for capital punishment has dropped significantly a fairly new science, and none of the saliva or since 1996, when 78 percent supported the death blood collected at the crime scene was tested penalty for people convicted of murder. By 2018, for DNA. Simpler blood, saliva, and hair tests support had fallen to 54 percent, according to the were inconclusive. Exculpatory evidence was Pew Research Center. available but ignored, such as shoe prints found around the victim’s body that didn’t match the “If I were to be murdered,” wrote Prejean, “I size of Krone’s feet or any shoes he owned. would not want my murderer executed. I would not want my death avenged—especially by Based on little more than the testimony of a government—which can’t be trusted to control dental analyst who said the bite marks on the its own bureaucrats or collect taxes equitably victim’s body matched Krone’s misaligned or fill a pothole, much less decide which of its front teeth, a jury found Krone guilty. He was citizens to kill.” sentenced to death. B E F O R E R AY K R O N E WA S S E N T E N C E D TO D I E , his “It’s a devastating feeling when you recog- life bore no resemblance to Ajamu’s. From tiny nize that everything you’ve ever believed in and Dover, Pennsylvania, Krone was the eldest of stood for has been taken away from you, and three children and a typical small-town Ameri- without just cause,” Krone told me. “I was so can boy. Raised a Lutheran, he sang in a church naive. I didn’t believe this could actually happen choir, joined the Boy Scouts, and as a teenager was known as a fairly smart kid, a bit of a prank- ster. He pre-enlisted in the Air Force during high school; after graduating, he served for six years. Having received an honorable discharge, he stayed in Arizona and went to work for the I N N O C E N T 75

2,133 During the past five decades 182 former death-row prisoners, an average of four YEARS LOST FOR THE people a year, have been exonerated of all WRONGLY CONVICTED charges related to their death sentences. Advances such as the use of DNA testing have led to a small decrease in wrongful convictions but have not been sufficient to overcome official misconduct and human error. DATE OF CONVICTION 1972 1975 1976 1980 1985 The modern era of the death BLACK U.S. Supreme penalty is considered to have Court upholds the started after a 1972 Supreme constitutionality of Court ruling condemned state capital punishment laws and demanded reform. Graham 5 years 182 PEOPLE HAVE BEEN Cobb EXONERATED 7 years Latino Williams Jamison 17 43 years 20 years Ajamu 39 years Asian Finch Convicted of murder, 1 43 years Clifford Williams and Charles Finch spent Black White Native the most time in 94 69 American prison, 43 years each. Years 1 30 20 Number of years WHITE Burrell from sentencing 13 years 10 to exoneration DNA evidence linked to exoneration YEARS UNTIL EXONERATION Keine Bloodsworth The exonerees lost years—almost 12 2 years 9 years on average—for crimes they didn’t commit. Here they’re grouped by LATINO The first person to be exoner- time wrongfully convicted. ated based on DNA evidence was Kirk Bloodsworth, in 1993, after nine Exonerees years in prison. DNA has led to 26 61 more death-row exonerations. 39 Croy Meléndez 30 30 26 years 17 years 22 NATIVE AMERICAN AND ASIAN 1-5 6-10 11-15 16-20 20+ 1972 1975 1976 1980 1985 Years 76 N A T I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

REASON FOR Official Perjury Misleading Inadequate Mistaken False E XO N E R AT I O N misconduct or false forensic legal witness confession accusation evidence identification Two out of three defense cases involved official misconduct, such as 68% 62% 29% 25% 19% 13% concealing evidence. In many cases a witness of cases lied under oath, com- mitting perjury. 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 CAUSE FOR EXONERATION BY RACE/ETHNICITY Exonerations of Black Official misconduct people convicted of mur- der were predominantly 78% linked to later findings of police misconduct. Perjury or false accusation 65% Lindsey 3 years Mistaken witness identification 26% Smith Misleading forensic evidence 5 years 26% Average, all races Law-and-order campaigns in For whites, false or mis- Official misconduct the 1980s sparked an explo- leading forensic evidence 56% sion of harsh punishments. was a principal reason for Skyrocketing incarceration wrongful convictions, five Perjury or false accusation rates disproportionately points above the average. 52% penalized African Americans. Misleading forensic evidence Krone Drinkard Thibodeaux 35% 10 years 6 years 15 years Inadequate legal defense 20% Milke 25 years Padgett For Latinos, perjury was Perjury or false accusation 5 years discovered in 14 of the 17 82% cases, 20 points over the Only two women—charged in average. Inadequate legal Official misconduct their children’s deaths—have defense was also a top cause. 65% been exonerated, Debra Milke and Sabrina Smith. Inadequate legal defense 41% Misleading forensic evidence 12% Martínez Patrick Croy, a Shasta-Karuk, 4 years was exonerated for inade- quate legal defense. Michael Blair Blair, an Asian American, was 14 years exonerated because of mis- taken witness identification. 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 DATA AS OF DECEMBER 15, 2020. ONLY INDIVIDUALS SENTENCED TO DEATH AFTER 1972 ARE INCLUDED. MONICA SERRANO, NGM STAFF; KELSEY NOWAKOWSKI. SOURCE: DEATH PENALTY INFORMATION CENTER

MORE THAN evidence collected during the original investi- 70 PERCENT OF gation. Over objections by the prosecution, a ALL COUNTRIES judge granted a request by the family’s lawyer to HAVE REJECTED have an independent lab examine DNA samples, CAPITAL including saliva and blood from the crime scene. PUNISHMENT. In April 2002 the DNA test results showed that to me. I had served my country in uniform. I Krone was innocent. A man named Kenneth worked for the post office. I wasn’t perfect, but Phillips, who lived less than a mile from the bar I had never been in trouble. I’d never even got- where Ancona was killed, had left his DNA on ten a parking ticket, but here I was on death row. clothes Ancona had been wearing. Phillips was That’s when I realized that if it could happen to easy to find: He already was in prison for sexu- me, it could happen to anyone.” ally assaulting and choking a seven-year-old girl. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office spent When Krone was released from prison four upwards of $50,000 on the prosecution, cen- days after the DNA test results were announced, tered on its bite-mark theory, while the consult- he became known as the hundredth man in the ing dental expert for Krone’s publicly funded United States since 1973 who’d been sentenced defense was paid $1,500. This discrepancy in to death but later proved innocent and freed. resources available to prosecutors and defen- dants in capital cases has long been replicated G A RY D R I N K A R D was no choirboy. He’d had across the nation, leading to predictable out- prior brushes with the law when Dalton Pace, a comes for defendants staked to under-resourced junk dealer, was robbed and killed in Decatur, and often ineffective legal counsel. Alabama, in August 1993. Krone got a new trial in 1995, when an appeals Police arrested Drinkard, then 37, two weeks court ruled that prosecutors had wrongly with- later when Beverly Robinson, Drinkard’s half sis- held a videotape of the bite evidence until the ter, and Rex Segars, her partner, struck a deal with day before the trial. Again, he was found guilty. police that implicated Drinkard in the slaying. Prosecutors relied on the same dental analysts Facing unrelated robbery charges that also poten- who’d helped convict Krone the first time. But tially implicated Drinkard, the couple agreed, in this time the sentencing judge ruled that a life exchange for the charges being dropped against sentence was appropriate, not death. them, to cooperate with police and testify that Drinkard told them he’d killed Pace. Krone’s mother and stepfather refused to give up on their belief in their son’s innocence. When I spoke with Drinkard, he reminded They mortgaged their house, and the family me of a weather-beaten man straight out of a hired their own lawyer to look into the physical Merle Haggard song. He wore coveralls and chain-smoked Newports. He spoke slowly and guardedly in a deep southern drawl. He grew exasperated only when I asked him to describe his time on death row. “I thought they were going to kill me,” Drink- ard said. That certainly seemed to be the plan. Using testimony from their star witnesses (the half sister and her partner), prosecutors hammered home the alleged confession while Randal After Randal Padgett’s trial in 1992, prosecu- was found guilty, the Padgett wife, Cathy, was fatally tors failed to promptly same judge sentenced stabbed in August tell the defense that him to death. Three M A R S H A L L C O U N T Y, A L 1990, police in Alabama blood from the crime years later, Alabama’s charged him with scene didn’t match Court of Criminal 5 YEARS IN PRISON, capital murder. The Randal Padgett’s. Upon Appeals ordered a new ALL ON DEATH ROW; couple had separated, learning this, defense trial, citing the prosecu- EXONERATED IN 1997 and Padgett, a chicken lawyers asked for a mis- tors’ actions. Padgett, farmer, was dating trial, which the judge now 70, was found not another woman. At his denied. After Padgett guilty and released. 78 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C



Sabrina During her 1990 trial, the boy’s injuries were Mississippi’s supreme Smith Smith, née Sabrina consistent with her court ordered a new Butler, now 50, was efforts to revive him trial, which resulted in LOW N D E S C O U N T Y, M S convicted of murdering after he’d stopped her exoneration. She’s her infant son, Walter. breathing. Butler one of only two U.S. 5 YEARS IN PRISON, She was just 18. Her wasn’t put on the women on death row HALF OF THEM ON DEATH ROW; court-appointed stand to support her to be exonerated; the EXONERATED IN 1995 attorneys called no claim of innocence. other is Debra Milke witnesses who could Citing improper of Arizona, who spent have testified that actions by prosecutors, 25 years in prison. 80 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

Kirk Bloodsworth B A LT I M O R E C O U N T Y, M D 9 YEARS IN PRISON, 2 OF THEM ON DEATH ROW; EXONERATED IN 1993 In 1993 Bloodsworth, now 60, became the first person in the U.S. to be exonerated from death row by DNA. He was con- victed of the 1984 rape and murder of a nine- year-old girl based on the testimony of five wit- nesses who put him near the site. No physical evi- dence linked him to the crime, but he was sen- tenced to die. Nine years later, DNA testing of stored evidence proved his innocence; it would be another decade before the real killer was identified and charged. Juan Meléndez P O L K C O U N T Y, F L 17 YEARS IN PRISON, ALL ON DEATH ROW; EXONERATED IN 2002 Meléndez learned to speak English while on Florida’s death row. When he tells his exoneration story, he recounts the number of years, months, and days he spent there. No physical evidence linked him to the 1983 homicide he was con- victed of, but he wasn’t exonerated until a tran- script surfaced of a taped confession by the actual killer. The transcript had long been available, but the prosecutor hadn’t shared it with Meléndez’s defense. Once it was discovered, a judge over- turned the conviction. Meléndez learned after his release that his mother had saved money to ship her son’s body home to Puerto Rico, his birth- place, after his execution. I N N O C E N T 81

82 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

Shujaa Graham SAN JOAQUIN C O U N T Y, C A 11 YEARS IN PRISON, 5 OF THEM ON DEATH ROW; EXONERATED IN 1981 Graham, right, 69, with his son, Jabari, showing off a tattoo of his father, was a troubled teen who spent part of his ado- lescence in juvenile detention facilities. He was already in adult prison when convicted of killing a prison guard in Stockton, California, in 1973. The state supreme court overturned his convic- tion in 1979 after it was revealed that prosecu- tors had systematically excluded Black jurors. In a 1981 retrial, he was exonerated. Today he is an avid speaker on death penalty and racial justice issues.

improperly influencing the jury with references murdering Dawn Hamilton, a nine-year-old girl, to Drinkard’s alleged involvement in those ear- near Baltimore, Maryland. Police were alerted to lier thefts. Drinkard’s public defenders, who had Bloodsworth, who had just moved to the area, no experience in capital cases and very little in when an anonymous tipster reported him after criminal law, mostly stood mute. They made no seeing a televised police sketch of the suspect. real attempt to introduce evidence that could have proved their client’s innocence. Drinkard Bloodsworth bore little resemblance to the was found guilty in 1995 and sentenced to death. suspect in the police sketch. No physical evi- He would spend close to six years on death row. dence linked him to the crime. He had no prior criminal record. Yet Bloodsworth was convicted In 2000 the Supreme Court of Alabama and sentenced to death based primarily on the ordered a new trial because of the prosecution’s testimony of five witnesses, including an eight- introduction of Drinkard’s criminal history. year-old and a 10-year-old, who said they could place him near the murder scene. Witness mis- “Evidence of a defendant’s prior bad acts… is identification is a factor in many wrongful con- generally inadmissible. Such evidence is pre- victions, according to the DPIC. sumptively prejudicial because it could cause the jury to infer that, because the defendant has com- “Give him the gas and kill his ass,” Bloods- mitted crimes in the past, it is more likely that he worth recalled people in the courtroom chanting committed the particular crime with which he is after he was sentenced. All the while, he won- charged,” the court wrote in granting a new trial. dered how he could be sentenced to die for a ghastly crime he hadn’t committed. Drinkard’s case had drawn the attention of the Southern Center for Human Rights, an He was granted a second trial nearly two years organization that fights capital punishment. It later, after it was shown on appeal that prosecu- provided him with legal counsel. At Drinkard’s tors had withheld potentially exculpatory evi- 2001 retrial, his lawyers introduced evidence dence from his defense, namely that police had that indicated Drinkard was suffering from a identified another suspect but failed to pursue debilitating back injury and was heavily medi- that lead. Again, Bloodsworth was found guilty. cated at the time of the slaying. Drinkard’s law- A different sentencing judge handed Bloods- yers argued that he had been at home and on worth two life sentences, rather than death. workers’ compensation when Pace was killed, so he couldn’t have committed the crime. A county “I had days when I was giving up hope. I jury found Drinkard not guilty within one hour, thought I was going to spend the rest of my life and he was released. in prison. And then I saw a copy of Joseph Wam- baugh’s book,” Bloodsworth said. “I was not opposed to capital punishment until the state tried to kill me,” Drinkard said. That 1989 book, The Blooding, describes the then emerging science of DNA testing and how T H E R E H AV E B E E N more than 2,700 exonerations law enforcement had first used it to both clear overall in the U.S. since 1989, the first year that suspects and solve a rape and murder case. DNA became a factor, according to the National Registry of Exonerations. Bloodsworth wondered whether that science could somehow clear his name. In 1993 Kirk Bloodsworth was the first per- son in the nation to be exonerated from death When he asked whether DNA evidence row based on DNA evidence. Bloodsworth was could be tested to prove that he was not at the arrested in 1984 and charged with raping and crime scene, he was told the evidence had been destroyed inadvertently. That wasn’t true. The evidence, including the girl’s underwear, later Gary Police arrested Gary partner testified that ordered a new trial Drinkard Drinkard, now 62, two Drinkard had killed the because prosecutors weeks after a junk junk dealer. Drinkard’s had wrongly introduced MO RGA N C O U N T Y, A L dealer was robbed and public defenders pre- Drinkard’s criminal killed in Decatur, Ala- sented no evidence to history. At that trial, 6 YEARS IN PRISON, bama, in August 1993. In prove his innocence. evidence showed he ALL ON DEATH ROW; exchange for burglary He was found guilty was home with a back EXONERATED IN 2001 charges being dropped and sentenced to death injury the night of the against them, Drinkard’s in 1995. In 2000 the murder. He was found half sister and her Alabama supreme court not guilty and freed. 84 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C



2,555 In 1972 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty violated the Eighth PEOPLE ARE ON DEATH ROW Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual IN THE UNITED STATES punishment. Twenty-two states have abol- ished it; others have enacted new laws to conform to the court’s rulings. Today there are prisoners on death row in 28 states and in federal and U.S. military facilities. STATE DEATH PENALTY STATUS Each dot represents one person now on death row. Person on Allowed by state Death penalty state Federal penalties apply Federal Military death row 1,604 with no executions to all states and territo- 54 4 in the past 10 years ries; the military death Governor- penalty is rarely used. imposed (1972) Year abolished moratorium 892 or moratorium Wash. (2018) Idaho 8 Mont. 2 N.D. Minn. (1911) Ind. Ohio 140 N.Y. Vt. Maine (1887) Oreg. 30 (2011) Nev. 73 Wyo.* (1973) Wis. (1853) 8 (2004) (1964) Mass. (1984) Mich. (1846) Conn. (2012) Calif. 722 (2019) S.D. 1 N.H. 1 (2019)** Utah 7 Nebr. 12 Iowa (1965) Pa. 140 (2015) R.I. (1984) Ill. (2011) N.J. (2007) Ky. 28 Colo. Kans. 10 Mo. 21 Del. (2016) (2020) Tenn. 50 Md. (2013) N. Mex. Ariz. 116 (2009) Okla. 45 W. Va. Va. 3 D.C. (1981) (1965) N.C. 141 Ark. 30 Miss. Ala. 172 40 Tex. Ga. S.C. 210 44 37 La. 69 Alaska Fla. 337 (1957) Hawaii (1957) NUMBER OF DEATH SENTENCES Black Latino BY RACE/ETHNICITY White Other Since 1972, the death sentence has been handed down more than 9,550 times. A single defendant can be sentenced to death multiple times for different crimes, sometimes in different states. 350 Sentences 300 250 200 150 100 50 1972 ’75 ’80 ’85 ’90 ’95 2000 ’05 ’10 ’15 ’20 *WYOMING HAS NOT ISSUED A DEATH SENTENCE SINCE 1982. THE GOVERNOR CONSIDERED A MORATORIUM IN 2020. **NEW HAMPSHIRE ABOLISHED THE DEATH PENALTY IN 2019. THE REPEAL BILL DID NOT APPLY TO THE ONE PRISONER ON THE STATE’S DEATH ROW. †THOUSANDS OF EXECUTIONS ARE BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN CARRIED OUT IN CHINA BUT NOT PUBLICLY ACKNOWLEDGED. DATA AS OF DECEMBER 15, 2020. ONLY INDIVIDUALS SENTENCED TO DEATH AFTER 1972 ARE INCLUDED. CHRISTINE FELLENZ, NGM STAFF; KELSEY NOWAKOWSKI. SOURCES: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL; DEATH PENALTY INFORMATION CENTER

GLOBAL EXECUTIONS Amnesty International recorded at least 657 executions in 20 countries in 2019. China,† Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt, and the U.S. head the list, in that order. Death penalty Death penalty not practiced (no executions in the past 10 years) Allowed for exceptional or military crimes No death penalty was found in the courthouse. Prosecutors, sure to a hospital in Columbus, Mississippi, where of their case, agreed to release the items. he was pronounced dead on arrival. Less than 24 hours later she was charged with murder. Once the items were tested, usable DNA was detected—none of it Bloodsworth’s. He was Walter had serious internal injuries when he freed, and six months later, in December 1993, died. Butler told police investigators she believed Maryland’s governor granted him a full pardon. that the injuries were caused by her efforts to It would be almost another decade before the revive him. Police doubted her story, and after actual killer was charged. The DNA belonged several hours of interrogation, without a lawyer to a man named Kimberly Shay Ruffner, who present, she signed a statement that said she’d had been released from jail two weeks before struck her baby in the stomach after he wouldn’t the girl’s murder. For a time Ruffner, who was stop crying. Eleven months later Butler was con- given a 45-year sentence for an attempted rape victed of murder and sentenced to die. and attempted murder soon after Bloodsworth’s arrest, and Bloodsworth were housed in the Butler’s defense team called no witnesses. A same prison. Ruffner pleaded guilty to Hamil- medical expert might have testified that Wal- ton’s murder and was sentenced to life in prison. ter’s injuries were consistent with the clumsy CPR of a desperate mother. A neighbor—who Today Bloodsworth is the executive director was called as a witness during a subsequent of WTI and a tireless campaigner against capi- trial—could have provided helpful testimony tal punishment. The Innocence Protection Act, of Butler’s attempts to save her son’s life. Instead signed into law by President George W. Bush in Butler’s court-appointed lawyers, including one 2004, established the Kirk Bloodsworth Post- who specialized in divorce law, neither called Conviction DNA Testing Grant Program to help witnesses nor put Butler on the witness stand defray the cost of DNA testing after conviction. to support her case. “I was poor and had only been in the Baltimore “Here I was, this young Black child in a room area for 30 days when I was arrested,” said Bloods- full of white adults,” Butler, now Sabrina Smith, worth, now 60. “When I tell people my story and recalled. “I did not understand the proceedings. how easy it is to be convicted of something of All that I had been told by my attorneys was to sit which you’re innocent, it often causes them to quietly and look at the jury. When I realized my rethink the way the criminal justice system works. defense wasn’t going to call any witnesses to help It doesn’t require much of a stretch to believe prove my innocence, I knew my life was over.” that innocent people have been executed.” Butler’s conviction and sentence were set S A B R I N A B U T L E R discovered that Walter, her aside in August 1992, after Mississippi’s supreme nine-month-old son, had stopped breathing court ruled that the prosecutor had improperly shortly before midnight on April 11, 1989. An commented on her failure to testify at trial. A 18-year-old single mother, Butler responded new trial was ordered. with urgent CPR. When the child could not be revived after several minutes, she raced him The second trial, with better lawyers, working pro bono, resulted in exoneration. A neighbor testified about Butler’s frantic attempts to revive I N N O C E N T 87

Joaquín José Joaquín José Martínez, his convictions and their testimony. In Martínez 49, is the only Euro- ordered a new trial, 2001 Martínez was pean to be exonerated citing prosecutors’ acquitted. He now H I L L S B O RO U G H C Y, F L from death row in the efforts to prejudice lives in Spain and cam- U.S. He was convicted jurors and improper paigns against the 4 YEARS IN PRISON, of the 1995 murder of statements by police death penalty. When ALL ON DEATH ROW; two people in Florida during Martínez’s Martínez was on EXONERATED IN 2001 and sentenced to trial. At the retrial, death row, Pope die. Florida’s supreme several prosecution John Paul II called for court overturned witnesses recanted his life to be spared. 88 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

Perry Cobb C O O K C O U N T Y, I L 7 YEARS IN PRISON, ALL ON DEATH ROW; EXONERATED IN 1987 Cobb, 79, once held the dubious U.S. record for most trials for the same slayings. He was tried five times for two killings at a Chicago hot dog stand in 1977. The first two trials ended in hung juries; in a third, he was found guilty and sentenced to death. The Illinois Supreme Court reversed the conviction, saying Cobb and a co-defendant were deprived of a fair trial. A fourth trial ended in a hung jury, and in Cobb’s fifth trial a judge acquit- ted him. Cobb was pardoned by the Illinois governor in 2000. Damon Thibodeaux JEFFERSON PARISH, LA 15 YEARS IN PRISON, ALL ON DEATH ROW; EXONERATED IN 2012 Thibodeaux, now 46, was convicted of raping and murdering a 14-year-old cousin after he confessed under extended police interrogation and sleep deprivation. He recanted but was convicted despite contradictions between his confession and the facts of the crime. He had been on death row for 10 years when the Jefferson Parish district attorney, working with his lawyers and the Inno- cence Project, reopened the case and did DNA and other forensic tests. They found that the girl hadn’t been sexually assaulted and that DNA from the scene wasn’t his. His confession was determined to be false. I N N O C E N T 89

Ray Krone MARICOPA C O U N T Y, A Z 10 YEARS IN PRISON, 4 OF THEM ON DEATH ROW; EXONERATED IN 2002 In April 2002 Krone, now 64, became known as the 100th man to be exonerated from death row. He’d been convicted of murdering a 36-year-old bar man- ager who was killed in a bathroom of a Phoenix lounge that Krone frequented. Krone had given her a ride to a party a few days earlier. DNA at the crime scene went untested; the prose- cution relied on faulty bite-mark evidence. When the DNA was submitted as evidence in a retrial, Krone was cleared. The actual killer identified by the DNA was already in prison for sexually assaulting and choking a seven- year-old girl.

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Herman Lindsey, now 48, was on Lindsey. He spent that it said biased Lindsey convicted in 2006 of two years on death the jury. Lindsey robbing and murdering row before Florida’s still lives in Florida, B ROWA R D C O U N T Y, F L a Fort Lauderdale supreme court threw which has the highest pawnshop clerk in 1994. out his convictions number of death-row 3 YEARS IN PRISON, No physical or forensic and exonerated him. exonerations in the U.S. 2 OF THEM ON DEATH ROW; evidence linked him The court cited a He fishes (here with his EXONERATED IN 2009 to the case. Even so, lack of evidence and stepson) and counsels police pinned the blasted prosecutors youths about avoiding long-unsolved killing for improper conduct bad decisions. her child. A medical expert testified that the that the group raped her and that she then saw child’s injuries could have resulted from the CPR the group kill the student at the same motel. efforts. Evidence also was introduced indicating that Walter had a preexisting kidney condition The problem with the story should have been that likely contributed to his sudden death. readily apparent. The bikers weren’t in Albu- Butler was released after spending five years in querque when William Velten, Jr., the student, prison, the first half of that on death row. was killed. They were partying in Los Angeles and had a dated traffic citation to prove it. The Less than two years after her exoneration, housekeeper later recanted her story. Butler, the first of just two American women ever to be exonerated from death row, received In September 1975 a drifter, Kerry Rodney Lee, a summons for jury duty. confessed to killing Velten, possibly because he felt guilty knowing that four men were on death “I was so appalled,” she told me. “I went down- row for his crime. The gun used in Velten’s slay- town and spoke to the court administrator. I ing matched a gun stolen from the father of Lee’s explained to him that the state of Mississippi had girlfriend. Based on this evidence, Keine and his tried to kill me. I told him I was quite certain that I biker friends were granted new trials and the would not make a good juror.” She was dismissed. prosecutor decided not to indict them. Lee was convicted in May 1978 of murdering Velten. A QUE STION that frequently confounds exonerees and the general public alike is whether a consis- “When I was on death row, I knew I was inno- tent formula exists for compensating the falsely cent, but I still came within nine days of my first convicted, especially those sentenced to die. The scheduled execution date,” said Keine, now 73. “I short answer is no. A small number of exonerees didn’t have a voice. So when I got out, I decided I have been compensated for millions of dollars was going to spend my life being a thorn” in the depending on the laws of the state that convicted side of the criminal justice system. “I decided them, but many receive little or nothing. that I was going to go from dead man walking to dead man talking.” Few death-row exonerees more closely follow the issue of compensation than Ron Keine, who Keine, who founded several successful small lives in southeastern Michigan. Keine has made businesses after his exoneration, has testified it part of his life’s mission to improve the plight before state legislators seeking to overturn cap- of the wrongly convicted, who often reenter soci- ital punishment laws. Having received only a ety with meager survival skills. He wasn’t always $2,200 settlement from the county that put him so benevolent. on death row, he has been vocal in calling for a system of compensation for others wrongly Growing up in Detroit, Keine ran with a rough sentenced to death. crowd. He’d been shot and stabbed before he turned 16. At age 21, he and his closest friend, “When people get off death row, they feel like who both belonged to a notorious motorcycle a piece of shit,” he said. “They don’t have any club, decided to drive a van across the U.S. self-worth—no self-esteem, and they usually don’t have two nickels in their pocket. We try to The extended open-road party was going as build them up. We try and help them find the planned until he and four others were arrested resources they need to survive.” j in 1974 in Oklahoma and extradited to New Mex- ico, where they were charged with the murder Phillip Morris wrote the story on rethinking mon- and mutilation of a 26-year-old college student uments in our February issue. Martin Schoeller in Albuquerque. A motel housekeeper reported specializes in portraiture and is currently focusing on death-row exonerees and Holocaust survivors. 92 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C



A A U.S. AGENCY’S THE TINY CHANGE TO A MAP PUSHED INDIA AND PAKISTAN TO FIGHT ON THE WORLD’S HIGHEST B AT T L E F I E L D. WHO MADE THE CHANGE HAS REMAINED A MYSTERY— UN TIL NOW. LINE IN 94

M O U N TA I N S BY FREDDIE WILKINSON P H OTO G RA P H S BY CORY RICHARDS



Pakistani soldiers unload an Mi-17 helicopter at the Paiju administrative post. Vital supplies range from drums of avi- ation fuel to construction rebar to fresh eggs. For troops deployed along both sides of the Saltoro Range, helicopters are a lifeline. “Angels from above,” one officer said. PREVIOUS PHOTO Soldiers assigned to the 62 Brigade of the Pakistan Army pause beneath the Trango Towers at the terminus of the Baltoro Glacier. “It’s difficult terrain,” one says. “But we must defend every inch of our motherland.”

At the Sarfaranga firing range outside Skardu, Pakistani soldiers clean their G3A3 rifles and snack on bananas during a training session. 



M Ropes keep teams safe while traversing some Maj. Abdul Bilal of the Pakistan Army’s Special Service Group types of terrain. Here huddled with his team beneath a rock outcropping deep in soldiers of Pakistan’s the Karakoram Range. It was April 30, 1989, and a late after- 323 Brigade have tied noon snow squall gathered around the 11 men as they labored themselves together to breathe the thin air more than four miles above sea level. to lessen the chance At first glance they might have appeared to be mountaineers, one will be lost in an icy except for the white camouflage jackets they wore and the abyss as they cross the automatic weapons slung over their shoulders.  Gyong Glacier at 17,500 feet. Many crevasses In fact, mountaineers would have been jealous of this van- are known by the names tage point, which offered a panorama of some of the world’s of soldiers who have most colossal mountains. The hulk of K2, the second high- died in their depths. est point on Earth, loomed just over the horizon, 50 miles to the northwest. But the majority of the icy peaks remained Editor’s Note: unclimbed and nameless, identified on maps only by num- National Geographic bers that corresponded to their elevations. asked the Indian Army to allow our writer and Climbing to their position on this peak, labeled 22,158, photographer to visit would’ve required ascending an avalanche-riddled face of the Indian-controlled rock and ice. Four men had died trying. Instead, Bilal’s team Siachen Glacier. The had been ferried by helicopter. One by one, the men dan- army declined to gled from ropes as the helicopters struggled to stay aloft in grant access. the thin, subfreezing atmosphere. Deposited some 1,500 feet below the summit, the team spent a week fixing ropes and 100 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

reconnoitering the terrain above to prepare for snow wall. Bilal continued, “The Indian Army this decisive moment. is going to get you killed by sending you here!” Then he heard the distinctive, two-click cadence A few men suggested they rope up for safety. of AK-47s cocking. “If you rope up, if one of us is hit, then all of us go down,” Bilal told them. “Wear crampons but “We weren’t wanton killers,” Bilal says three no ropes.” They made a final check to make sure decades later, recounting the story in his home in the moving parts on their weapons hadn’t frozen. Rawalpindi. “We just wanted to preserve our own And then, just before dusk, with howling wind at territory. We would defend it at all costs...that was their backs, Bilal led the team single file as they our patriotic duty.” He is certain the Indians fired climbed up a corniced ridge toward the summit. first. Bilal and his men returned fire. The crack of the shots was dampened by the snow and the thin Suddenly the dark, sunburned faces of two air, and one of the Indians went down. Indian sentries peered down from a wall of snow built in a makeshift observation post. Bilal called The Pakistanis stopped firing, and Bilal called out to them in Urdu, “You are surrounded by sol- to the other Indian. “Leave this place…We’re not diers of the Pakistan Army. Lay down your arms.” going to take you prisoner, and we won’t shoot you in the back.” The Indian soldier stood up, The two Indians ducked down behind the A L I N E I N T H E M O U N TA I N S 101

FOR THREE DECADES, INDIA AND PAKISTAN HAVE SENT YOUNG SOLDIERS TO THIS HARSH ENVIRONMENT FOR MONTHS AT A TIME and Bilal watched him trudge away, panting for in India, Pakistan, and the United States, trying breath, until he disappeared into the mist. to unravel an obscure but important mystery to the Siachen saga. And now Cory and I had come Few outside of Pakistan and India took notice. to Pakistan to see firsthand the consequences of And yet the Battle of Peak 22,158 bears a macabre what can happen from the seemingly simple act distinction: It’s the highest lethal ground combat of drawing a line on a map.  ever recorded.    On a bluebird morning 28 years later, photog- rapher Cory Richards and I shuffled awkwardly THE onto the boot-stomped snow of a helipad a few GEOGRAPHER miles from the spot of that encounter. As profes- sional mountaineers, we both had climbed peaks On June 27, 1968, 21 years before Bilal led his in the Karakoram and understood the effort and team up Peak 22,158, Airgram A-1245 was sent to skills required simply to survive here.  the Office of the Geographer, a little-known unit buried within the U.S. State Department’s labyrin- For more than three decades, India and Paki- thine C Street NW headquarters in Washington, stan have sent young soldiers to this harsh D.C. It eventually landed on the desk of 45-year- environment, where they remain for months old assistant geographer Robert D. Hodgson. at a time, guarding a remote, uninhabited wilderness. Observers began referring to the Signed by William Weathersby, the chargé d’af- confrontation as the Siachen Glacier conflict, faires in the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, the letter after the monumental sheet of ice that domi- began: “On various occasions…the Government nates the landscape where the disputed borders of India has formally protested to the Embassy of Pakistan, India, and China meet. about U.S. Government maps which were distrib- uted in India showing the status of Kashmir as ‘in Since 1984, the two sides have incurred thou- dispute’ or in some way separate from the rest of sands of casualties. A cease-fire was agreed to in India.” It closed with a request for guidance on 2003, but dozens of soldiers still die here each how to represent India’s borders on U.S. maps. year—from landslides, avalanches, helicop- ter crashes, altitude sickness, embolisms, and For India and Pakistan, nations born from the other causes. Nevertheless, every year Indian bloodshed that accompanied Partition—the offi- and Pakistani soldiers eagerly volunteer to serve cial term for the dissolution and subdivision of here. “It’s seen as an extreme badge of honor,” British India—maps were a matter of national one Pakistani official told me.  identity. But for Hodgson and the other staff of the Office of the Geographer, they were a pro- Shelves of books, news articles, and scholarly fessional trade. papers have been written about the conflict, with authors often remarking on the absurdity of Every year the U.S. government published armies fighting over such useless territory. The thousands of maps—by many estimates it was general assertion is that two stubborn enemies, the largest map publisher in the world. Respon- blinded by hatred, will go to the most extreme sibility for depicting international political lengths to oppose each other, a notion crystal- boundaries fell to the Office of the Geographer. lized by Stephen P. Cohen, an analyst at the Brookings Institution, who famously summed This mission gave the office considerable up the Siachen conflict as “a struggle of two bald influence over far-reaching corners of the U.S. men over a comb.” government, including the Department of Defense and the CIA. The office held the ultimate But the circumstances that prompted the two authority to depict the alignment of the world’s bald men to start fighting have never been fully explained. I’d spent four years following a paper trail of recently declassified documents and inter- viewing officials, scholars, and military personnel 102 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

TO GUARD UNINHABITED WILDERNESS. political borders as far as the official U.S. policy time on this little [segment of a boundary], and was concerned and, in turn, helped shape the way then it winds up two weeks later that little tiny other nations viewed them. It also meant that, place—who would’ve thought—being very rel- among the approximately 325 country-to-country evant or extremely important,” Linthicum says. land boundaries the U.S. recognized, the thorn- “Even if it isn’t important in terms of military or iest cartographic questions fell to Hodgson and intelligence, it’s important to somebody … and his fellow geographers. Addressing these conun- getting their village, their house, or their fields in drums demanded a surveyor’s sense of precision the wrong country is something that I definitely and a scholar’s approach to research. try to work at every day to avoid.”  The term for this is “recovering boundaries,” Unfortunately for Hodgson, the set of geopoliti- explains Dave Linthicum, an ebullient, bearded cal and boundary issues that came across his desk man who recently retired after more than 30 in the form of Airgram A-1245 represented one of years as a cartographer for the CIA and the Office the most intractable to be found anywhere on the of the Geographer. “We’re not drawing lines out globe—a “cartographic nightmare,” in the words of [whole] cloth. We’re recovering the boundaries of one geographer—the dispute over Kashmir. where they were placed in 1870 or 1910 or you name it with these old maps, old treaties.”   A F T E R WO R L D WA R I I , when the British relin- Today Linthicum and his contemporar- quished control of the Indian subcontinent, ies spend a good part of their job poring over they hastily decided to divide the region into high-definition satellite imagery. By comparison, two states based on the two dominant religions, Hodgson, a former marine who’d been wounded India for Hindus and Pakistan for Muslims. fighting on Okinawa, began his career “map shag- ging” for the State Department while stationed Commissions appointed by the British vice- in Germany from 1951 to 1957. Map shagging roy, Lord Louis Mountbatten, and made up of entailed driving around to local magistrates, representatives from the two most influential pawing through archives of musty paper maps, political parties, the Indian National Congress and physically verifying the location of towns and Muslim League, were convened to decide and geographic landmarks across the land. In the new boundaries—an impossible task given the early days of the Cold War, a cartographic that millennia of overlapping cultures and mistake could have cataclysmic consequences: empires had left South Asia with intermingled In the event of a conflict, U.S. planes could be populations of Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs.  sent to bomb the wrong town, or possibly the wrong country, if a map was off by a few miles, At the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, or a slightly different spelling of a place-name India and Pakistan gained their independence. was used. Violence erupted as millions of frightened people tried to make their way across the new borders Linthicum understands all too well how easy it to join people of their religion. The conflict was is to make a mistake. A decade ago he was tasked bloodiest in the Punjab—the subcontinent’s with drawing the border between Nicaragua and agricultural heartland. Overall, as many as two Costa Rica as it follows the San Juan River to the million people were killed in the chaos.  Caribbean Sea. He drew the boundary as follow- ing an old watercourse rather than the river’s cur- Under the terms of Mountbatten’s plan, a rent course, erroneously assigning a few square mountain kingdom north of Punjab known offi- miles of an island to Nicaragua. Google Maps cially as the Princely State of Jammu and Kash- adopted Linthicum’s line, and soon Nicaragua mir faced its own special dilemma. Although sent a platoon of 50 soldiers to occupy the island.  the population was overwhelmingly Muslim, Kashmir was ruled by a Hindu maharaja and was “Sometimes at work with my colleagues, it’ll granted the option to determine which country be, you know, why are you spending that much it would join. But weeks after independence, militias of Pashtun tribesmen, with support A L I N E I N T H E M O U N TA I N S 103



A game of cricket pro- vides a dose of levity and exercise for men of the Pakistan Army’s Punjab Regiment at Gora I, an administrative post at roughly 13,700 feet alongside the Baltoro Glacier. Mash- erbrum, a 25,659-foot peak and part of a sub- range of the Karakoram Range, shimmers in the distance under its blan- ket of snow and ice.