Day: October 11, 2012

On September 28, Damon Thibodeaux, at the age of 38, was given the gift of life. Thibodeaux was wrongly convicted of the rape and murder of his “step-cousin” in 1996 and spent 15 years on death row in Louisiana.  Grieving over his 14-year-old cousin’s death, he confessed to the crime during a grueling nine-hour interrogation in which police threatened to put him to death by lethal injection.  He later recanted the confession, citing pressure from police and grief, but was sentenced to death in 1997.  Despite his conviction, attorneys at Fredrikson & Byron P.A.*† believed in Thibodeaux’s innocence and agreed