Category: death penalty

Innocent man: Why has the system left my prosecutor free to re-offend?

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By Alan Bean

Sometimes innocent people go to prison even though everyone in the legal system behaves with integrity.  But what happens when a wrongful conviction results from a prosecutor sitting on a pile of exculpatory evidence?  Shouldn’t the man we pay to represent the state be held accountable? 

I wish this was a hypothetical question; it isn’t.  In this gripping op-ed for the New York Times, John Thompson tells us how it feels to come within a whisker of the electric chair.  He also explains the prosecutorial misconduct that placed him in that situation and wonders aloud why the Supreme Court of the United States thinks its okay for prosecutors to withhold evidence.

The Prosecution Rests, but I Can’t

John Thompson

I SPENT 18 years in prison for robbery and murder, 14 of them on death row. I’ve been free since 2003, exonerated after evidence covered up by prosecutors surfaced just weeks before my execution date. Those prosecutors were never punished. Last month, the Supreme Court decided 5-4 to overturn a case I’d won against them and the district attorney who oversaw my case, ruling that they were not liable for the failure to turn over that evidence — which included proof that blood at the robbery scene wasn’t mine. (more…)

Supreme Court justices wash their hands of the Troy Davis case

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Laura Moye of Amnesty International and Kathryn Hamoudah of Georgians For Alternatives to the Death Penalty address a Troy Davis rally in Atlanta

By deciding not to hear further appeals in the Troy Davis case, the Supreme Court of the United States has given Georgia officials a green light to proceed to execution.  But nothing is simple when issues of life and death are on the line.  

Georgia won’t be able to proceed directly with an execution because their supply of sodium thiopental, a powerful anesthetic that is the first of three shots administered during lethal injection in Georgia and dozens of other states, was recently seized by federal authorities.  The producer of sodium thiopental announced that it would no longer be exporting the drug to the United States because their product was intended to cure, not kill.  Georgia is one of several states that appears to have procured quantities of the drug illegally from a sketchy outfit in the United Kingdom. (more…)

Quinn signs Illinois death penalty ban

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Pat Quinn did it!  The death penalty is dead in Illinois!  (If you would like to congratulate the Illinois governor, Amnesty International has a nifty little form to fill out.)

Illinois becomes the fourth state to abolish the death penalty–the others are New York, New Jersey and New Mexico.

This was a tough call for a governor who has been aggressively lobbied by folks on both sides of the death penalty debate.  The tipping point appears to have been the 20 innocent defendants convicted in the state of Illinois.  “To have a consistent, perfect death penalty system … that’s impossible in our state,” Quinn explained. “I think it’s the right and just thing to abolish the death penalty and punish those who commit heinous crimes — evil people — with life in prison without parole and no chance of release.” (more…)

Supreme Court hands Hank Skinner a big victory

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By Alan Bean

Monday’s ruling by the Supreme Court has removed legal roadblocks standing between Texas death row defendant Hank Skinner and the testing of DNA evidence he says will exonerate him.  Prosecutors had argued that since Skinner was covered in the blood of the murder victim, no further testing was necessary.  Skinner’s defenders have asked why, if further DNA is unlikely to produce evidence helpful to Skinner, the state is so adamantly opposed to testing.

At NPR, Nina Totenberg provides her usual just-the-facts-ma’am analysis.  Dave Mann’s comments at the Texas Observer site reveal the deeper significance of this ruling: (more…)

Rick Perry’s Atheist Pope

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Eighteen months ago, Texas Governor Rick Perry appointed Williamson County DA John Bradley to head up the Texas Forensic Science Commission.  It was like turning over the Vatican to Richard Dawkins.  Bradley, like most Texas prosecutors, thinks forensic scientists have one role: helping the state convict bad guys; Perry’s atheist pope likes forensic testimony crafted to the needs of the prosecution.

Governor Perry put Bradley in charge of the TFSC to keep the Cameron Todd Willingham debacle out of the headlines during his primary fight with Kay Bailey Hutchinson.  Perry also tried to stack the commission with people who share Bradley’s worldview, but things haven’t worked out to the governor’s liking.  As Rick Casey demonstrates in this informative column in the Houston Chronicle, Bradley is unlikely to receive Senate confirmation. (more…)

Osler: The death penalty replicates the actions of the killer

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Illinois Governor Pat Quinn

The Illinois legislature has passed legislation that would end the death penalty in that state; now Governor Pat Quinn must either sign or veto the bill.  At this point, it’s a jump ball.  As Quinn weighs his options, Attorney General Lisa Madigan has submitted a letter brimming with horror stories.  Message: the sacred memory of the innocent victims demands a life for a life. 

Former prosecutor, Mark Osler, believes Madigan has the issue exactly wrong.   “The more heinous and despicable the crime committed by the offender,” he writes, “the more these victims’ family members wish to have nothing in common with him. They do not want to sink to his level, to replicate his actions by killing.”

Why the Legislature Is Right and Lisa Madigan Is Wrong About the Death Penalty

By Mark Osler

As Illinois Governor Pat Quinn continues to ponder a bill to abolish the death penalty, one document before him is a letter from Attorney General Lisa Madigan. In that letter, Madigan refers to several pending cases and urges the governor to veto that bill.

As a former prosecutor who now trains future prosecutors and works with family members of murder victims, I disagree with the Attorney General, even in the face of the gruesome circumstances she cites in her letter. The death penalty has failed in Illinois, and should not be resuscitated based on briefly-described anecdotes. (more…)

McLaren: Is God Violent?

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This succinct article summarizes a chapter in Brian McLaren’s excellent book, A New Kind of Christianity.  This piece was originally published in Sojourners and has also appeared in Christian Ethics Today.  How should Christians think and feel about the criminal justice system, in general, and the death penalty, in particular?  Everything hinges on the nature of God.  Alan Bean

Is God Violent?

By Brian McLaren

I recently received a note from a pastor and missionary we’ll call Pete. It went like this: ”I have read most of what you have written, including A New Kind of Christianity…I would say I am in agreement with [much of what you write], but I do think you bring disservice to this argument in the evangelical world when you shun the ‘violence’ of God and the subsequent need for the cross’ justification, which was also quite violent.” (more…)

Grisham’s “The Confession” is captivating

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Reviewed by Charles Kiker

John Grisham, The Confession, Doubleday, 2010

John Grisham’s novels are always good reads. This one is—no other word is adequate—captivating. It is a must read for anyone interested in the injustice of the criminal justice system, especially in Texas and especially as regards capital punishment. It is a recommended read for those not interested in the injustice of the criminal justice system, in the hope that they might get interested.

It is a work of fiction, but not really. So many real events have been worked into this novel that I had to remind myself occasionally that I was not reading the Dallas Morning News, or watching the evening news on television. For example, the judge and the prosecutor are sleeping together—and they are not husband and wife—during the trial of Donte Drumm. The Court of Criminal Appeals closes at 5:00 PM and will not let attorneys in at 5:07 even though they know attorneys are on the way for a last minute appeal. Coerced confessions, jailhouse snitches, perjured testimony—it’s all here. (more…)

North Carolina poised to repeal Racial Justice Act

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By Alan Bean

In the dwindling days of the 2009 legislative session, lawmakers in North Carolina, voting along party lines, passed a Racial Justice Act that allows death row defendants to use statistics to corroborate claims of racial bias in the criminal justice system. Then came the 2010 election. With the Republicans now in control of the state legislature, prosecutors from across the state are calling for the repeal of the Racial Justice Act.

The controversy centers in a study by the Michigan State University Law School finding that qualified black jurors in North Carolina are more than twice as likely to be excluded from juries as qualified white jurors.

Of the 154 inmates currently on death row in North Carolina, 33 were tried by all-white juries and 40 had juries with only one person of color. The state is approximately 70% white and 25% African-American. (more…)

Death penalty dies a slow death in Illinois

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By Alan Bean

Eight years ago, Illinois Governor George Ryan declared a moratorium on the death penalty when it was revealed that many “confessions” were coerced.  In Chicago, for instance, commander Jon Burge allegedly tortured one hundred eight men between 1973 and 1991.  Now, the Illinois legislature has voted to make Ryan’s moratorium permanent and hopes are high that current governor Pat Quinn will sign the legislation.

This Chicago Tribune editorial demonstrates that compassion for murderers has little to do with the demise of the death penalty in Illinois.  Few Americans want to be associated with rank injustice.  When the system is so broken that innocent men are certain to die, support for the ultimate punishment plummets.  (more…)