Exoneration & The Salem Witch Trial

Since we began discussing the Salem Witch Trials after spring break, I have been interested in the most recent happens around Salem and how the women are being memorialized. I stumbled upon an article about how in 2022, the very last woman accused in Salem, Elizabeth Johnson Jr., was officially pardoned. Why did it take 329 years for Elizabeth to be pardoned after being wrongly accused? 
Tour Group in Salem, MA

Elizabeth Johnson Jr. was convinced and sentenced to death but was never executed before the hysteria ended. Governor William Phips threw out her punishment as the magnitude of the misjustices in Salem were revealed. It has been more than three centuries since the Salem Witch Trials and every suspect, including Johnson's mother, was cleared. Because Johnson never had children, she had no ancestors to act on her behalf and push the government to pardon her so her case still stood. That is until an 8th-grade class petitioned for her pardon. 

                                        Two of the 8th Grade Students that Helped Pardon Johnson

Both Elizabeth Johnson Jr. and Dorothy Good were held in jail in horrible conditions for long amounts of time and that still happens today. On average, an exonerated death row survivor spends 11.5 years behind bars for crimes they did not commit. Dorothy Good was never the same after her incarceration and that is still true today. After their release, inmates often have no money, housing, or transportation, and difficulty adjusting to society again, even though they were found to be innocent. Johnson was also thought to have a mental disability, making her a target in the trials. 

Incarceration can have serious negative impacts on a person's physical and mental health. We don't have a lot of details regarding Dorothy Good and Elizabeth Johnson Jr's lives after the trials but we can assume from what we see today that they may have struggled to adjust to outside life. The trials weren't just over when the executions ceased, the memories of neighbors turning on you, the horrors of the jail cell, and the torture endured to receive a confession live on in the minds and bodies of survivors. This stresses the importance of being as close to 100% sure as possible before convicting someone of a crime, which still is not conducted today. 




Comments

  1. williams.dan76April 10, 2024 at 9:27 AM

    Insightful, informative blog, thanks. I appreciate your taking the time to research the aftermath and in particular the exoneration of of Elizabeth Johnson Jr., someone I know little about. But her exoneration does not come too long after most of the accused and executed victims were finally memorialized in 1992, three hundred years later. I appreciate your comparison to preset-day death-row survivors who were later exonerated with new evidence. I really enjoy reading your blog.

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