Henry Lee McCollum is a name that comes up regularly when the death penalty is discussed, because the crimes for which he was convicted – the brutal 1983 rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl in North Carolina – test the thresholds many of us have regarding when someone should or shouldn’t be put to death.

And now, it turns out those crimes are not his.

McCollum, 50, and his brother, Leon Brown, 46, were freed Wednesday after DNA evidence tied the 1983 rape and murder to someone else. The brothers, both of whom are mentally disabled, had signed confessions after hours of questioning with no lawyers present. There was no physical evidence tying either to the rape or murder.

Since 1989, 18 people who have served time on death row have been exonerated by DNA evidence, according to the nonprofit Innocence Project. Another 16 were exonerated after being convicted of capital crimes but not sentenced to death. Overall, DNA has overturned more than 300 wrongful convictions nationally.

Certainly, there are far more murder convictions that are legitimate – some for truly abhorrent crimes – as Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia argued in 1994 when the court declined to review a Texas death row case.

Scalia, in arguing that the death penalty was not cruel or unusual punishment, cited the gruesome crime for which McCollum had been convicted. “How enviable a quiet death by lethal injection compared with that!” the justice wrote.

Now, the murderer is not a murderer, and those who were so sure he deserved to die must ask: How many more Henry Lee McCollums might there be?

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