The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area The death sentence of Tommy Lee Waldrip was commuted to life without parole by the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles one day before his planned execution in July 2014.117 The board did not give reasons for the decision.118 Fair Trial Guarantees During the reporting period there were nine exonerations of individuals who had been previously sentenced to death, according to the National Registry of Exonerations.119 In 1990, in Arizona, Debra Milke, one of those exonerated, was charged with the murder of her son, conspiracy to commit murder, child abuse and kidnapping. No forensic or physical evidence linked her to the murder. The primary evidence against her was the testimony of the detective who questioned her and claimed she confessed to murdering her son. A jury sentenced Milke to death. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit granted her petition for a writ of habeas corpus in 2013, and held that the prosecution had violated Milke’s right to a fair trial because it had not turned over evidence of the detective’s previous misconduct. The misconduct included several other cases in which the detective lied under oath, and those in which the convictions were vacated because he violated the Fourth and Fifth Amendments during the investigations. Milke spent 23 years of her life on death row.120 In 1984, Henry McCollum121 and Leon Brown,122 African-American and intellectually disabled half-brothers, were convicted for the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl in North Carolina. After being retried, McCollum was again sentenced to death and Brown was sentenced to life in prison. In 2004, DNA testing on a cigarette butt found near the victim’s body did not match the DNA profiles of Brown or McCollum and, in 2010, the state police DNA database found that the DNA from the cigarette matched the profile of another man, already sentenced to 117  “Waldrip’s death sentence commuted to life without parole”, Atlanta JournalConstitution, 9 July 2014, <http:// www.ajc.com/news/news/breaking-waldrips-death-sentence-commuted-to-life-/ngcRm/>. 118  Ibid. 119  According to The National Registry of Exonerations, this includes: Henry McCollum (“Black”, North Carolina), Ricky Jackson (“Black”, Ohio), Leon Brown (“Black”, North Carolina), Wiley Bridgeman (“Black”, Ohio), Kwame Ajamu (“Black”, Ohio), Debra Milke (“White”, Arizona), Willie Manning (“Black”, Mississippi), Anthony Hinton (“Black”, Alabama), Alfred Brown (“Black”, Texas); see The National Registry of Exonerations, <https://www.law.umich.edu/special/ exoneration/Pages/detaillist.aspx>. 120  See more about Debra Milke see the National Registry of Exonerations website: <https://www.law.umich.edu/ special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=4660>. 121  See more about Henry McCollum, see the National Registry of Exonerations website: , <https://www.law.umich. edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=4492>. 122  See more about Leon Brown, see the National Registry of Exonerations website: <https://www.law.umich.edu/ special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=4493>. 27