Releases from NV Death Row
Paul Browning
33 years served
before found innocent
Following his release, Browning told the Las Vegas Review-Journal, “I just want to find a little bit of peace after coming through all this madness.” Speaking about his time on death row, he said: “Being in there that long, you see a lot of things that affect you. You get to know people, no matter how horrendous their crimes were. You see a lot of death — natural causes, suicide. It affects you.” He also spoke about the misconduct in his trial: “It’s about me sitting there in court, starting with the preliminary hearing, and you see the witnesses testifying against you — all of the misconduct that occurred during trial. It’s just unjust. And it kind of hits you, right here in your gut. And that’s what has driven me.”
Ronnie Milligan
Over 20 years served
In September of 2010, a Nevada district judge ordered the immediate release of Ronnie Milligan, who spent over 20 years on death row. Milligan, a Navy veteran, may have been wrongfully convicted of the 1980 killing of Zolihon Voinski. Milligan was the only one of three co-defendants who was sentenced to death for the crime. Milligan, who testified at his trial that he was in an alcoholic blackout at the time of the crime, was not even at the scene when Voinski was killed. Another co-defendant signed an affidavit saying that Milligan was not present during the killing, and that everybody involved conspired against him when they learned he had no memory of that day. Expressing “grave reservations” about Milligan’s guilt, District Judge Richard Wagner sentenced Milligan to a term of life with the possibility of parole and determined that Milligan was immediately eligible for parole.
Roberto Miranda
Served 14 years
A man who spent 14 years on Nevada’s death row for a crime he said he didn’t commit settled a federal lawsuit against Clark County for $5 million, ending a claim that alleged he was not adequately represented by the Clark County public defender’s office.
Represented by an attorney who had passed the state bar only months before, Roberto Miranda was convicted of killing a man and sentenced to death in 1982. On appeal, a judge ordered a new trial because of errors in his defense, and Miranda was released in September 1996 after prosecutors decided not to pursue the case.
Miranda claimed his attorney failed to adequately defend him and said he didn’t find a witness who could have cleared him of the crime.