This should be required reading for all who support the death penalty

[MajorChode]

The New Yorker article is 17 pages long, but is excellent to read. It contains a tale of how corrupted witnesses, incompetent investigators, and a discredited forensic psychiatrist managed to send what is almost certainly an innocent man to the death chamber.

There have been other news articles in DU posted about Cameron Todd Willingham, but this one is the most complete and the most compelling. It makes me ashamed to be a Texan and how we can continue to reelect Gov Goodhair who signed the death warrant of an innocent man.

Perhaps someday Hollywood will make a movie about it, because that seems to be the only way people in the US can get emotional about these types of things.

Trial by Fire
Did Texas execute an innocent man?
by David Grann

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann

[redqueen]

1. Thanks for posting this.

K&R

[MajorChode]

2. I know you've posted about Cameron Todd Willingham before

It's perhaps the saddest case I've ever seen of an innocent man going to prison. It wasn't as if he was a gangbanger who just happened to be at the wrong place, but put himself in a bad situation. Willingham was a family man who loved his children, and after they got taken away from him he got railroaded for their deaths. Once the incompetent good-ole-boy arson investigator made up his mind, everything else just stacked up against him. It took over a decade before someone was smart enough to realize the accelerant they found on the porch (only) was from a bottle of lighter fluid used for the charcoal grill that was kept there.

Everything about it is just so sad.

[redqueen]

3. It is tragic.

I hope this case might help the movement to end the use of the death penalty here.

[MajorChode]

5. Here's why it should

In a lot of these cases where an innocent man was sent to prison, people don't really identify with them and tell themselves it could never happen to them. However, in this case the guy was simply at home asleep and his house burned down. Because his kids died, they sent him to the gallows. So even those who simply have no empathy should at least be able to understand that this most certainly could be them someday.

At least if an innocent man is going to be murdered by the state, we should at least learn from it so his death has meaning. Will this actually happen? I'm not so optimistic.

[redqueen]

7. Me neither.

Because despite how true it is, what you just said... far too many people seem to just loooove to get their vengeance on.

[TreasonousBastard]

4. The Death Penalty Information Center has...

histories on many of 135 people exonerated after getting the death penalty at trial. There are a few more that they don't list, and some estimate there are a few dozen or so innocents who have been executed.

The National Coalition Against the Death Penalty lists a few of the executed who were probably innocent, or had no real chance to plead their case before they were killed.

http://www.ncadp.org/index.cfm?content=20

Wiki has some good stuff, too, including Jesse Tafero and Wayne Felker, who seem to have been inocent of the crimes they were executed for.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrongful_execution

Great Britain, to its credit, may have overused the gibbet in the past, but has posthumously pardoned the executed innocents it has identified.

[MajorChode]

6. The New Yorker article also mentions Randall Dale Adams...

who was completely exonerated, yet came within 72 hours of being executed. The same discredited forensic psychiatrist testified against him.

[TreasonousBastard]

8. I remember him...

but Herrera was executed when Scalia wrote the majority opinion that evidence of innocence is no reason to hold up an execution if the paperwork isn't in on time. I'll get around to reading the whole article later-- it loks like a good one.

Michael Richard probably was guilty, but Sharon Keller is on trial because, as a judge, she refused to accept an appeal that would become a stay order because it was after 5 o'clock. Earlier that day, the USSC issued an opinion questioning lethal injection, and the appeal was based on that, but couldn't be finished by 5.

Richardson was executed that night.

And, you realize, these hundred or so are only the ones we know about. How many others are out there who have been railroaded but have little evidence to contradict that provided at trial? And Death Row gets automatic appeals and many of the best appeals lawyers. How many innocents are serving hard time without anyone at all caring?

We love "justice" here. We just don't much like doing it right.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

9. When the courts become infallible, I'll consider whether or not to support the death penalty.

While they're still administered by mortals, it's clearly a bad idea.

[unblock]

11. even if the courts are infallible

those who write the laws are still corruptible.


personally, i think the power to kill ones subjects is a power no government should hold.

[MajorChode]

14. Even if the courts were perfect, it still doesn't guarantee that an innocent will not be executed

The standard for guilt is "reasonable doubt". The standard itself allows for error. So even if everyone involved in the process does their job exemplary, it still doesn't mean you have an error free system. Put enough people through the process and eventually the process will fail. The law of averages demands it. The painful reality that many involved in the system do not perform their jobs exemplary only increases the odds that a mistake will be made.

The death penalty itself is nothing less than state sanctioned murder. If you fire a gun into a crowd, you may or may not kill someone, but the mere fact that you acted in a willfully reckless manner with malice means you are guilty of murder. Although the chances aren't the same in death penalty cases, you still have a system that if used enough will result in the death of an innocent. That behavior is not only reckless, it is willful and with malice. So we're not talking about even manslaughter. It's murder as defined by our own laws. But because it's perpetrated on behalf of the state, people choose to live with it and some even champion it. However, it's still murder.

[struggle4progress]

10. knr

[Tommy_Carcetti]

12. I think the most tragic thing is....

....even if we were certain and assured of a person's guilt, it wouldn't make the death penalty any more moral or ethical or just, or anything other than a vengeful exercise in futility.

That being said, what happened to Mr. Willingham is a disgusting travesty.

[TransitJohn]

13. Thanks for posting.

I am 100% anti-death penalty. I just wish all those who will rec this thread along with me would chime in when the inevitable "fry 'em" responses get posted in threads about child sexual exploitation.

[Jackeens]

15. Thank you so much MajorChode, I finally got around to reading the article tonight, it is astounding.

It is just an extraordinary piece of journalism. While the story is deeply depressing Elizabeth Gilbert provides some relief, her good heart and integrity are such a stunning contrast to the evil cast of characters in this case.

Thanks again MajorChode, I wouldn't have seen this article only for your post.

[MajorChode]

16. Even that chapter is terribly sad

On the day of Willingham's execution, she was in an auto accident and was paralized. She was never able to tell him goodbye. The whole thing just reads like a Shakespearean tragedy.

[mdmc]

17. kick