James Joseph Richardson

James Joseph Richardson (December 26, 1935 – September 16, 2023) was an African-American man who was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death in 1968 for the October 1967 mass murder of his seven children. They died after eating a poisoned breakfast containing the organic phosphate pesticide parathion. At the time of the murders, Richardson was a migrant farm worker in Arcadia, Florida living with his wife Annie Mae Richardson and their children. At a trial in Fort Myers, Florida, the jury found him guilty of murdering the children and sentenced him to death. As a result of the United States Supreme Court's 1972 Furman v. Georgia decision finding the death penalty unconstitutional, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. He was then exonerated in 1989 after 21 years, when his case was revisited by appointed Miami-Dade County prosecutor Janet Reno. Following Richardson's exoneration, the babysitter of the Richardson children, Bessie Reece, has been named as the key suspect. Reece died in 1992. they went home to eat lunch. After they returned to school that afternoon, their teachers noticed they were showing strange symptoms, and the principal immediately took them to hospital. Treadwell insisted that Purvis left with the impression that a policy was in place, but Purvis adamantly denied this. His sentence was commuted to life in prison, with eligibility for parole in 1993. At the time of the children's murders, Reece was on parole for manslaughter for shooting and killing her husband. The prosecution had worked hard to keep this fact from coming up at trial. Also, the last surviving witness to Richardson's alleged jail-cell confession recanted his testimony to state legislators, saying that he had been offered a lighter sentence in return for the testimony.

After his release Richardson went to work for comedian and activist Dick Gregory at Gregory's health resort in Fort Walton Beach; He filed a lawsuit against DeSoto County for his wrongful prosecution, and settled for $150,000. In 2016 he received his first check toward compensation, totalling $50,000 for each year of his wrongful imprisonment.

Documentary In 2015, a documentary film about Richardson was produced called Time Simply Passes. It tells the story of his life until the vote to grant him compensation.