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Thousands of People Might Be in Prison for Crimes That Never Even Happened
Once an event is mislabeled as a crime, forward momentum takes over — especially when there’s already a suspect
In 2012, Rodricus Crawford was wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in Louisiana for the murder of his one-year-old son, Roderius. Years later, it was revealed that Roderius had not been killed but rather had died from pneumonia and sepsis in his lungs.
How, then, did Crawford wind up on death row for a murder that never happened?
Crawford was convicted because of a number of interrelated factors. He was Black and poor in a city rife with racial division. Responders arrived with biased expectations about what had likely occurred in Crawford’s home and ignored evidence suggesting that the infant’s death was caused by illness. The police investigated with tunnel vision, anticipating from the outset that Crawford had engaged in wrongdoing. The medical examiner prematurely committed to homicide as a cause of death and disregarded and minimized clear medical evidence that pointed to a quite different conclusion. The prosecutor was eager to secure yet another capital conviction, and the judge went along for the ride.
