Randy Steidl was freed from an Illinois prison in 2004 after a team including top lawyers found the evidence used to convict him of two murders in the 1986 was flawed.

If a mistake is made, Steidl says a person can be freed from prison. But he says they can’t be released from the grave, once they’ve been executed.

The men spoke at a news conference just before the fourth public meeting of the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment.

The commission was scheduled to discuss the risk of innocent people being executed and the impact of DNA on assuring accuracy in capital cases.