The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area–Background Paper 2021 suffered from an intellectual disability. The Court also denied a stay of execution to permit Corey Johnson to recover from COVID-19.227 In February 2021, 11 people were added to the Death Penalty Information Center innocence list, bringing the number of wrongfully convicted American death-row prisoners who have been exonerated since 1973 to 185.228 Through data compiled by this NGO, it becomes clear how people of colour are disproportionately affected by police and prosecutorial misconduct, and are more likely to experience false accusation or perjury.229 A report released by the Death Penalty Information Center in September 2020 highlighted how racial discrimination permeates the criminal justice system.230 The report explains how, throughout United States history, the death penalty has been used to enforce racial hierarchies, starting during colonization as a tool for controlling Black populations and curbing rebellions. It demonstrates that discrimination is present in the United States criminal justice system at every stage of capital cases, for instance by systemic exclusion of jurors of colour, resulting in disproportionate imposition of death sentences against defendants of colour.231 Observers have noted that abolishing capital punishment forms part of necessary criminal legal reforms, as well as racial healing.232 227 Equal Justice Initiative, Federal Executions Continue Despite Serious Questions of Fairness, 16 January 2021 and Death Penalty Information Center, Federal Government Executes Corey Johnson, Who was Likely Intellectually Disabled, Without Any Judicial Review of His Eligibility for the Death Penalty, 14 January 2021. 228 According to DPIC: “Because of the inherent subjectivity of declaring a person innocent when some facts may remain in dispute, DPIC has adopted the objective criterion of “legal exoneration” for an individual to be included. What that means is that individuals who had been wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death were: Subsequently acquitted of all charges related to the crime that placed them on death row, either at retrial or by an appellate court determination that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to convict; Had all charges related to the crime that placed them on death row dismissed by the prosecution or had reprosecution barred by the court in circumstances implicating the reliability of the evidence of guilt; or Been granted a complete pardon based on evidence of innocence.” 229 Death Penalty Information Center, DPIC Special Report: The Innocence Epidemic, 18 February 2021. 230 This was also noted by Patrisse Cullors, the co-founder of Black Lives Matter, in Death Penalty Information Center, Capital Punishment and the Arts: Clemency Lead Actress and Black Lives Matter Co-Founder Discuss Justice and the Death Penalty, 7 August 2020; Death Penalty Information Center, DPIC Releases Major New Report on Race and the U.S. Death Penalty, 15 September 2020. 231 See section on “Race” in “The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area: Background Paper 2020”, OSCE/ODIHR, op. cit., note 5. 232 Death Penalty Information Center, Capital Punishment and the Arts: Clemency Lead Actress and Black Lives Matter Co-Founder Discuss Justice and the Death Penalty, 7 August 2020. 54