Posted on 04/20/2005 12:42:04 PM PDT by seacapn
AUSTIN, Texas - (KRT) - With its criminal justice system the subject of intense scrutiny for a crime lab scandal and a series of wrongful convictions, a Texas state Senate committee heard testimony Tuesday about the possibility that Texas had experienced the ultimate criminal justice nightmare: the execution of an innocent person.
Fourteen months after Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in the nation's busiest death chamber, a renowned arson expert and Willingham's lawyer told the Senate Criminal Justice Committee that they believed Willingham might well have been innocent but found nobody willing to listen to their claim in the days before the execution in February 2004.
(Excerpt) Read more at kansascity.com ...
We Texans just LOVE executing criminals. Kill-em all, and let GOD sort-em out! :)
Please provide your evidence that this person was "innocent."
An important consideration is that if the death penalty system is subject to such high standards of proof that most people who should get it don't, then a good number of innocent people will die as a result of subsequent crimes by these people. Obviously the risk is greatest if they are ever let out of prison, but there have been too many instances of prison guards and other prison workers being killed by these animals. It's an awful thing when ANY innocent person is killed, not just when an innocent person is killed by the state as a result of a flawed justice process.
First, the exposure is not equal for all. Second, of course no work of man is perfect, but that does not excuse not making it better when we can.
Oh yes, I see your point - if it cannot be made perfect then why bother making it better?
The man shows no remorse for his kids. That's worth an execution.
Not by the time they get to death row. Sorry, no sympathy here. What do you expect the criminal's lawyer to say...."Oh, justice was served" or "Oh, I screwed up his case"....eh?
I Love Texas! You can go to China and tell me all about the friends you meet there. Ha! Lighten up....I said that all in fun.
We don't know that he was. The operative words throughout the article is that he "may be" innocent. I suppose we may find out.
The point is, other innocent people have found their way to death row and then been released. I don't think it is too far fetched to think that other innocent poeple have been put to death for a crime they did not commit.
The salient point is this: Should we risk punishing someone with no ability for society to correct its mistake in a system that everyone will agree is not perfect. I say we should leave our options open and that we should not have a death penatly in this country.
Don't confuse that with being in favor of the criminals that are deserving of a death sentence. My position is based entirely on protections of the innocent and wrongly convicted.
CRIMINAL HISTORY/PUNISHMENT PHASE EVIDENCE
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals summarized the evidence presented during the punishment phase of Cameron Todd Willingham’s trial as follows:
At the punishment phase of trial, testimony was presented that Willingham has a history of violence. He has been convicted of numerous felonies and misdemeanors, both as an adult and as a juvenile, and attempts at various forms of rehabilitation have proven unsuccessful.
The jury also heard evidence of Willingham’s character. Witnesses testified that Willingham was verbally and physically abusive toward his family, and that at one time he beat his pregnant wife in an effort to cause a miscarriage. A friend of Willingham’s testified that Willingham once bragged about brutally killing a dog. In fact, Willingham openly admitted to a fellow inmate that he purposely started this fire to conceal evidence that the children had been abused.
Dr. James Grigson testified for the state at punishment. According to his testimony, Willingham fits the profile of a sociopath whose conduct becomes more violent over time, and who lacks a conscience. Grigson explained that a person with this degree of sociopathy commonly has no regard for other people’s property or for other human beings. He expressed his opinion that an individual demonstrating this type of behavior can not be rehabilitated in any manner, and that such a person certainly poses a continuing threat to society.
Yup, he sounds like a bad guy. I'm just saying that one bad case can 'ruin it for everyone,' so it's important that all DP cases be beyond reproach.
You seem to be arguing in this case that an innocent person never will be or never has been sentenced to death.
Boy - jumping on the anti- Death Penalty side awfully quickly, aren't you? The article offers ZERO evidence this guy was innocent of the crime executed for. It simply is another exercise in the destruction of the criminal justice system.
The closest to calling him innocent was "might".
I was already on that side of the death penalty issue. I did jump to conclusions though on the article by not reading it throughly. Not really sure of the circumstances in this case.
My view on the death penalty is that it does not give society a chance to correct a mistake should someone be wrongfully charged. I weigh this as more important than any belief that someone committing a horrendous crime should be executed. I'd rather they spend the rest of their life in jail than take the chance an innocent person would be put to death.
An average of 15-20 years of appeals and court reviews don't give society a chance to correct a mistake?
There's an old saying that it's better a hundred guilty go free than one innocent be wrongfully put to death. Like a lot of old sayings, this is hogwash. Many murderers who are sentenced to death are mutliple murderers. Let's say for argument's sake they average two each. Letting 100 guilty go free will result in another 100 innocents being killed. So we have one innocent person being killed vs. 100.
From eTaiwanNews:
Innocent man may have been executed, Texas panel told
With its criminal justice system the subject of intense scrutiny for a crime lab scandal and a series of wrongful convictions, a Texas state Senate committee heard testimony Tuesday about the possibility that Texas had experienced the ultimate criminal justice nightmare: the execution of an innocent person.
Fourteen months after Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in the nation's busiest death chamber, a renowned arson expert and Willingham's lawyer told the Senate Criminal Justice Committee that they believed Willingham might well have been innocent but found nobody willing to listen to their claim in the days before the execution in February 2004.
"This was a frustrating case, and it was frustrating because it appeared that we could not get anybody to listen," said attorney Walter Reaves Jr., who represented Willingham.
"To say that this case was thoroughly reviewed," Reaves added, "I have my doubts."
The execution of Willingham, who was convicted of the December 1991 arson fire that killed his three young daughters, was a focus of a hearing into a proposed innocence commission.
Texas Governor Rick Perry has, by executive order, set up his own committee. But critics, including state Senator Rodney Ellis, a longtime advocate of criminal justice reform in Texas, and Barry Scheck, a co-founder of the New York-based Innocence Project, told the senators that, to be effective, the governor's panel needed to subpoena sworn testimony, obtain documents and seek forensic testing. Ellis, a Houston Democrat, has sponsored legislation to beef up the power of Perry's commission.
"Without subpoena power and the ability to order testing, I don't see how the committee can get to the bottom of these cases," Scheck said after testifying. "I haven't heard of a committee that didn't want all of those things. If you want to find out the truth, you have to have the mechanisms to do it."
A Chicago Tribune investigation of the Willingham case last December showed that he was prosecuted and convicted based primarily on arson theories that have since been repudiated by scientific advances - a fact that was backed up by testimony Tuesday by one of those experts, Dr. Gerald Hurst.
According to Hurst and three other fire experts who reviewed evidence in the case at the Tribune's request, the original investigation that concluded the fire was arson was flawed, relying on theories no longer considered valid. It is even possible that the fatal fire at the Willingham home in Corsicana, a small town about an hour south of Dallas, was accidental, according to the experts.
Nonetheless, before Willingham died by lethal injection on February 17, 2004, Texas judges and Perry turned aside a report from Hurst in which he questioned the arson evidence and suggested the fire was an accident.
"The state," Hurst testified Tuesday, "needs to take an interest in these matters."
Willingham maintained his innocence until the end. Strapped to a gurney in the death chamber last year, just moments before his execution, an angry Willingham said: "I am an innocent man, convicted of a crime I did not commit."
The scientific advances that Hurst and the other experts cited in the Willingham case played a role in the exoneration last year of another Texas Death Row inmate, Ernest Willis. Hurst told the Senate committee that the two fires were identical, and that an investigation is needed to determine why Willingham died and Willis lived.
Many prosecutors oppose expanding the power of Perry's committee, called the Criminal Justice Advisory Council. Barry Macha, the district attorney in Wichita County, testified legislators should first give the governor's panel a chance to work as designed.
But that drew a skeptical response from committee chairman, state Senator John Whitmire.
"The problem is, they're appointed by the governor," Whitmire, also a Democrat from Houston, said of the council's members. "I would almost give them subpoena power and the first time they abuse it, we'll all come back."
Scheck also pointed to the case of Claude Jones, who was executed in December 2000 for the murder of Allen Hilzendager, who was shot and killed in a 1989 liquor store robbery. In that case, Scheck said, counsel for then-Governor George W. Bush prepared a recommendation for Bush that did not mention that Jones' request for a 30-day stay of execution was to allow DNA tests to be done on a hair found at the scene. Bush denied the request for a stay.
Last year, the Chicago Tribune asked to see the recommendation in the Willingham case to try to determine whether Perry was informed of Hurst's last-minute analysis. But the Tribune's request was rejected by state officials who said the documents are now considered confidential.
Scheck told the Senate committee that he believed the hair in the Jones case was still in evidence and that an innocence commission with broad powers could seek to test the hair to determine if Jones, who maintained his innocence, was guilty. Without that ability, Scheck testified, the commission "would be hampered or powerless in its ability to get to the bottom of this very important case."
That is set up to prevent the very mistake I am talking about. It is exactly that, leaving open the opportunity to correct a mistake.
Funny though, you would think 10 or more years would be enough time to discover it. Yet, a guy in Texas was just released after more than 10 years on death row. Everyone involved in the case acknowledged he did not do it. The prosecutor said it caused him to rethink how he goes about his job.
Some argue 10 to 15 years is too long. He would have been dead if they had their way.
I'm sure some would prefer we do as China does and just execute them a couple of months after the sentence has been handed down? What do you think?
You would have a point if we were executing criminals within minutes of their death sentence being handed down. As it is, if the perp, his lawyer, and the legions and anti-death penalty activists and lawyers can't convince anyone he is innocent for a dozen years, the chance that he is innocent is too small to be considered seriously.
The average death row inmate will spend at least a dozen years pleading his case, and has an excellent chance of getting it thrown out anytime a supreme court justice wants to impress his cocktail party guests with his amazing compassion for murderers. Never mind his guilt.
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