A prisoner who had been awaiting the death penalty for more than 25 years was acquitted in the United States.

A US court has acquitted prisoner Elwood Jones, who had been awaiting the death penalty for more than 25 years on charges of aggravated murder, robbery and burglary in 1994. This was reported on December 12 by The Telegraph.

It is noted that since December 2022, the man has been at large, since the judge granted him the right to a new trial. On Friday, December 12, 2025, Jones was acquitted, and the case against him was dismissed. According to the prosecutor's statement, the acquittal was the result of a comprehensive study of documents and evidence in the Jones case over many months.

"Among the issues considered during the audit were: the lack of physical or forensic evidence directly linking Jones to the murder; insufficient attention to the testimony of numerous witnesses pointing to other suspects; and the failure of Jones' defense to provide a large amount of investigative materials before the trial. Modern medical examinations have also excluded Jones from the list of suspects," the publication says.

Elwood Jones became the 12th acquitted person to be sentenced to death, said Kevin Werner, executive director of the organization Ohioans for the Abolition of the Death Penalty.

On September 25, American leader Donald Trump signed a decree authorizing the death penalty in Washington. It is specified that this measure will be introduced in the territory of the District of Columbia, which is not a US state. On January 20, a message appeared on the White House website that Trump had signed a decree on the return of the death penalty at the federal level. According to him, laws allowing the death penalty must be respected and applied in good faith.

Earlier, on March 25, the district court of the Japanese prefecture of Shizuoka ordered the central government to pay compensation in the amount of 217 million yen (about $ 1.44 million) to 89-year-old Iwao Hakamate, who spent almost half a century in prison awaiting the death penalty before being found innocent.

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