Free Republic

AS the words scroll across a darkened TV screen, we hear an authoritative voice announce that every year an alarming number of people in this country "are wrongfully convicted." Millions of Americans who watched these promotions in recent weeks knew they were pitches for the new ABC television drama "In Justice." But if they'd been listening from the next room, they might easily have thought from the somber tone that it was a tease for the nightly news or "20/20." "In Justice" has received dismal reviews. But that hasn't stopped its premise from permeating the conventional wisdom: that our prisons...

Something happened in the middle of Samuel Alito's triumphant hearings in the Senate last week that shouldn't be allowed to slip by. On Thursday, just as the hearings were winding up, results came back from a Toronto laboratory that DNA testing had affirmed once again that Roger Keith Coleman, executed in 1992 by Virginia for the rape and murder of his sister-in-law, was indeed guilty of the crime.

RICHMOND, Va. — Death penalty opponents said new DNA tests confirming the guilt of a murderer who was put to death in Virginia while still proclaiming his innocence will do nothing to end their fight to abolish capital punishment. The test results, announced Thursday by Gov. Mark R. Warner, prove Roger Keith Coleman was guilty of the 1981 rape and murder of his sister-in-law, putting an end to a debate over his guilt that has raged since he was executed in 1992

RICHMOND, Va. -- A new round of DNA tests that death penalty opponents believed might finally prove that an innocent man was executed in the United States confirmed instead that Roger Keith Coleman was guilty when he went to the electric chair in 1992. In a case closely watched by both sides in the death penalty debate, Gov. Mark Warner announced that genetic testing on semen proved Coleman committed the 1981 rape and murder of his sister-in-law, Wanda McCoy. Coleman went to his death proclaiming his innocence, and a finding that he was unjustly executed would have been explosive news...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new DNA test confirmed the guilt of a Virginia man who proclaimed his innocence up until his 1992 execution for rape and murder, the Virginia governor's office said on Thursday. "We have sought the truth using DNA technology not available at the time the (Virginia) Commonwealth carried out the ultimate criminal sanction" against Roger Keith Coleman, Virginia Gov. Mark Warner said in a statement. "The confirmation that Roger Coleman's DNA was present reaffirms the verdict and the sanction." Coleman was executed in May 1992 for the 1981 rape and murder of his 19-year-old sister-in-law, Wanda McCoy....

RICHMOND, Va. - New DNA tests confirmed the guilt of a man who went to his death in Virginia's electric chair in 1992 proclaiming his innocence, the governor said Thursday. The case had been closely watched by both sides in the death penalty debate because no executed convict in the United States has ever been exonerated by scientific testing.

Virginia Gov. Mark Warner plans to order DNA tests that reportedly could show a man executed for rape and murder in 1992 was innocent. If the tests, which Warner is expected to order before he leaves office in mid-January, clear Roger Coleman, death penalty opponents say it would be the first time an executed convict is scientifically shown to be innocent.

With less than two weeks left in Gov. Mark R. Warner's term, time is running out for him to arrange DNA testing that could determine whether Virginia sent an innocent man to the electric chair in 1992. If the tests show Roger Keith Coleman did not rape and murder his sister-in-law in 1981, it will mark the first time in the United States an executed person has been scientifically proved innocent, say death penalty opponents, who are keenly aware that such a result could have a powerful effect on public opinion. "I think it would be the final straw for...