If there is a true alibi exonerating someone, then there would have been no truthful evidence against him. And yet, a man without truthful evidence against him was almost put to death row. Why is that? Have we stopped caring about Blackstone's Formulation in our zeal to imprison everyone even possibly guilty?
Seriously tho, of course this is relevant. Either your authorities have extremely high confidence, beyond even unreasonable doubt proof or they don't. These are cases where people who didn't do it came close to the danger of being wrongfully executed by the state. If anything, this is a damning data point on how bad the executive and the judicial system are at only prosecuting when they have the proof. In fact it looks a lot like they will just take anybody who is remotely likely to have done it.
And full disclosure, I have donated to The Innocence Project
You mistake evidence for proof. Evidence is stuff like a witness that saw someone similar at the crime scene, a motive, the accused's DNA at the crime scene (left there before the crime, e.g. during a benign visit), an injury that could have been sustained during the struggle that led to a murder (but was actually sustained in an unrelated bar fight..), owned the same kind of unusual knife the victim was stabbed with (but lost it the night of the murder), etc. It suggests guilt, but leaves room for doubt.
If 'truthful evidence' only existed against the guilty, then the single tiniest bit of evidence would be enough to convict.
Yes it has problems but the headline and story are obscuring what really happened here. The guy was nowhere near death row.
He also had a strong motive as the victim testified against his brother in an unrelated gang murder in which he attended and his brother is serving time for. He also had a record and an eye witness (found later to be wrong) giving a description that could have been him. Add it all together and it was not about a poor minority being targeted by the system. The due process worked here. There is nothing extraordinary about this particular case--except--as promotion for a Netflix documentary that was promoted in the NYPost article:
"As covered in the Netflix documentary “Long Shot,” out Friday, Juan’s innocence would ultimately rest on a near brush with fame — more specifically, with Larry David and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
The real injustice is how “Curb Your Enthusiasm" is taking the spot light from a very real problem that was exposed here. The "clerical error" that had him sit in jail for 2 weeks after being cleared of charges. He won a settlement, but it never should have happened and is a larger problem facing the poor, drug addicts, and minorities, wrt the system.
I am somewhat surprised so many are skipping over this very real issue present in this very story for virtue signaling over death row that has nothing to do with this story other than unfounded speculation.