James Alan Gell (born 1974 in North Carolina) is an American who was wrongfully convicted of first-degree murder in 1998 and sentenced to death in Bertie County, North Carolina, at the age of 22. He served nine years as an inmate on death row before being acquitted in a second trial in 2004; he was freed from prison and exonerated that year. He was the 113th person to be freed from death row in the United States.
The State Superior Court determined that the prosecution had withheld significant exculpatory evidence and impeachment evidence in the first trial. It overturned the conviction in 2002, and remanded the case to the lower court for a new trial. Gell was acquitted in 2004 in his second trial and freed from prison, receiving a full exoneration that year.[1] As a result of this case, the state legislature passed a law affecting every felony case in the state; it requires "prosecutors to share their entire file with defendants, a change designed to prevent the misconduct that put Gell on death row."[2]
Gell struggled to build his life after he gained freedom, even as he became a spokesman for the anti-death penalty movement. He was charged with statutory rape and possession of cocaine in 2006; he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years. In 2009 the state and SBI insurers paid a civil suit settlement of $3.9 million to Gell over his 1998 wrongful conviction for murder and years of imprisonment on death row.[3]