“Prompted by questions raised in a report by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the prosecutor, Jennifer Joyce, hopes to decide once and for all whether Mr. Griffin was guilty or innocent – though she acknowledges that 25 years later it may be hard to do more than show the flaws in the earlier prosecution.

Still, should Ms. Joyce, the St. Louis circuit attorney, demonstrate Mr. Griffin was not the killer, as the report and even some members of the victim’s family contend, it would be the first proven execution of an innocent person, so far as death penalty advocates or opponents can recall.” (New York Times )