Innocence

On June 19, Oregonians gathered in Coos Bay to remember Alonzo Tucker, Oregon’s only documented African American victim of lynching. A historical marker now stands outside the Coos History Museum to memorialize Tucker, who was lynched in Coos Bay in 1902 in front of a crowd of 300, and the thousands of other African Americans who were lynched in this country. At the unveiling ceremony, more than 600 people paid witness to this act of justice and meaningfully added a new chapter to Tucker’s story.

Innocence and Mistakes:(revised 2/6/13) At the time they were convicted, some more than once, the juries had no reasonable doubt that they were guilty. Some were re-sentenced two or three times before evidence of their innocence was found. As of January 2012 none of those who have been sentenced to death in Oregon since 1984, when the current death penalty law was passed, have yet been found to be innocent. However, we have come perilously close.