How long?

St.Joan of Arc: Shall I arise from the dead and come back to you, a living woman?

Warwick: Rome made you a saint, we had no hand in the business. Let Rome decide.

Cauchon: Stay where you are, woman. A dead saint is always safer for the Church than a living one…

St. Joan, George Bernard Shaw

Courtesy of Robert Farley at Lawyers, Guns, and Money, an extremely belated pardon for a witch:

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — The Witch of Pungo is no longer a witch. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine on Monday gave an informal pardon to Grace Sherwood, who 300 years ago became Virginia’s only person convicted as a witch tried by water.

“I am pleased to officially restore the good name of Grace Sherwood,” Kaine wrote in a letter Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf read aloud before a re-enactment of Sherwood’s being dropped into the river.

The poor woman wasn’t executed, luckily, but she was harassed throughout her adult life and subsequently imprisoned for eight years:

Her neighbors thought she was a witch who ruined crops, killed livestock and conjured storms, and she went to court a dozen times, either to fight witchcraft charges or to sue her accusers for slander.

She was 46 when she was accused in her final case of using her powers to cause a neighbor to miscarry.

On July 10, 1706, Sherwood was dropped into the Lynnhaven River and floated _ which was considered proof she was guilty because the pure water cast out her evil spirit, according to the belief system of the time. The theory behind the ducking test was that if she sank, she was innocent, although she would also drown.

Sherwood may have been jailed until 1714, when records show she paid back taxes and with the help of then-Gov. Alexander Spotswood she was able to reclaim her property. She then lived quietly until her death at 80.

On a related note, here’s wikipedia on the end and eventual closure for the Salem witch trials, which resulted in the deaths of twenty people and the persecution of many more:

The witch trials ended in January of 1693, although people already jailed for witchcraft were not all released until May 1693 (Chronology). On October 3, 1692, Increase Mather published “Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits.” In it, Increase Mather stated “It were better that Ten Suspected Witches should escape, than that the Innocent Person should be Condemned.” This incident was so profound that it helped end the influence of the Puritan faith on the governing of New England.

A new system of government, and a new system for how court rulings worked was established in 1695, following the Witch Trials. All prior laws were elapsed, and new laws were put in effect. “Everything ruled under the old system was to be forgotten.” But many descendants of the people that were wrongfully hanged still sought closure and disagreed with this new “law”.

Numerous petitions were filed between 1692 and 1711 demanding monetary restitution to those wrongly accused. 17 Dec 1711 – 578. pounds 12 shillings was awarded to be divided among the survivors and relatives of those accused. Most of the accounts were settled within a year.

1954 – Still, not all the condemned had been exonerated. Descendants of those falsely accused demanded the General Court clear the names of their family members. In 1954 an act was passed pronouncing all guiltless

And here’s a chronology from Salem’s website, and a link to some pictures of the memorial.