Rob Warden

Nobody doubts that Charles Ray Jarrell Sr. shot and killed Marlin Shuler, a marijuana dealer, in 1990, after the two had been drinking beer together by a northern Alabama lake.

Four years after the naked and battered body of Barbara Jean Horn was found in a trash bag in Philadelphia, the police had made no arrests despite having a series of suspects.

Two U.S. Environmental Protection Agency investigators were on their way to dinner in October, 1988, when a man armed with a handgun suddenly emerged from between cars parked in a Houston lot and robbed them.

In January, 1982, a Greenwood, South Carolina resident was found dead in her bedroom closet by her neighbor, Jimmy Holloway.

Responding to Darlie Lynn Routier’s frantic 911 call from her Dallas County home in 1996, police found her two sons, Devon Routier, 6, and Damon Routier, 5, dying of stab wounds.

This is the first in a series of cases that Injustice Watch is featuring over coming weeks called “Unrequired Innocence.” Each of the cases involves defendants given death sentences who have not been exonerated, despite significant evidence that emerged casting doubt on their guilt. The case of Larry Swearingen represents the only one of these cases in which the defendant has been executed.