Putting death row in the rear view mirror: Debra Milke finds her purpose as a ‘survivor’

Debra Milke spent 25 years imprisoned, including on death row, for the 1989 murder of her four-year-old son Christopher, convicted largely on the word of a detective with a documented history of fabricating confessions. There was no recording, no witness and no signed statement of the alleged confession, and her two co-defendants — also sentenced to death — refused to testify against her.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned her conviction 25 years later citing police and prosecutorial misconduct, and the Arizona Court of Appeals later ruled a retrial would violate double jeopardy, freeing her. Now 62, Milke works with groups like Witness to Innocence, speaking to the United Nations, prosecutors, law students and police cadets about wrongful convictions and the death penalty.

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