Earl Washington Jr. Exonerated After 17 Years, Nearly Executed in Virginia

Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore granted an absolute pardon to Earl Washington Jr., a Black man with an intellectual disability who had falsely confessed to murder in 1983 and spent 17 years in prison, nine on death row. Washington came within nine days of execution in 1985. DNA evidence excluded him as the perpetrator. His case became a central example in the national debate over the death penalty's application to Black defendants with intellectual disabilities.