Circuit attorney's report defends execution of Missouri inmate

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Missouri did not execute an innocent man when Larry Griffin was put to death in 1995, a report by the St. Louis Circuit Attorney's office says.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Thursday that the two-year investigation determined that Griffin was likely the man who killed 19-year-old Quintin Moss in 1980. Prosecutors cited even stronger information from a witness who disappeared after the shooting.

"The evidence against Larry Griffin was studied by many entities," Joyce told the newspaper, citing the jury, appeals courts, the governor's office and her own investigation. "We've all reached the same conclustion: that the right man was held responsible."

In the years since Griffin's conviction in 1981, two key witnesses have recanted or wavered. A 2005 report by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund raised enough questions about Griffin's guilt to prompt Joyce to assign a team of prosecutors and police investigators to re-examine the case.

Their investigation has been watched closely, especially by death penalty opponents. Nearly 1,100 people have been executed in the United States in the modern era that began with Gary Gilmore's death by firing squad in Utah in 1977, and not one has been proved innocent after the fact.

Yet capital punishment foes have been arguing for years that the risk of a grave and irreversible mistake by the criminal justice system is too high to allow the death penalty.