There has been twenty-three people who were innocent and received capital punishment. These are a few of the people and there very sad stories. James Adams of Florida was convicted of first-degree murder and was sentenced to death. He was executed in 1984 someone said they saw him who was the one driving the car away from the victims house after the crime. It was later found out the witness who said that was just mad at Adams for dating his wife. They later checked the hair clutched in the victim's hand did not match Adams type. Maurice Mays from Tennessee was convicted of murder for killing a white woman and sentenced to death. His conviction was based on the testimony of a policeman that did not like him and of a person who really didn't get a clear look at him. When he appealed he got a retrial and he was reconvicted again. In 1926 the real killer confessed in a written statement that she was a white women dressed up as a black male and killed the women for having a affair wit her husband. Charles Sberna of New York was convicted of first-degree murder of a New York police officer. His friend testified at the trail that he knew Sberna was innocent and that the head of the New York homicide bureau had told he knew Sberna was innocent and if he told the real names of the people his name would be clear. The prison chaplain said of Sberna "This is the first time I've ever been positive that an innocent man was going to the chair". Joe Hill of Utah was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of two storekeepers. The prosecution only had sketchy circumstantial evidence that led to a fight between the trail judge and the prosecution. There were several appeals from president Woodrow Wilson to the Utah authorities for a reprieve hill never got a new trial. Hill was just an innocent victim of politics. The convictions of hill were one of the worst travesties of the justice in American labor history.