Tag: wrongful conviction

Virginia executioner becomes death penalty opponent

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By Alan Bean

This beautifully crafted story about an executioner turned death penalty abolitionist has the pacing of a crime novel.  Jerry Givens has experienced every aspect of the criminal justice system, including time behind bars.  If anyone has taken the full measure of the American gulag, he’s the guy.  The bit where Givens is asked if he would have executed Jesus if the state gave him the death penalty literally took my breath away. Highly recommended.

Ex-Virginia executioner becomes opponent of death penalty

By Justin Juvenal

Jerry Givens executed 62 people.

His routine and conviction never wavered. He’d shave the person’s head, lay his hand on the bald pate and ask for God’s forgiveness for the condemned. Then, he would strap the person into Virginia’s electric chair.

Givens was the state’s chief executioner for 17 years — at a time when the commonwealth put more people to death than any state besides Texas.

“If you knew going out there that raping and killing someone had the consequence of the death penalty, then why are you going to do it?” Givens asked. “I considered it suicide.” (more…)

How the US government used a Mexican drug lord to convict an innocent man

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Ramsey Muniz runs for Texas governor in 1970

By Alan Bean

Ramsey (Ramiro) Muniz is a man of seventy who hobbles on a bad hip, but his spirit grows stronger with each passing day.  Ramsey has now spent two full decades in federal prisons (including three years in solitary confinement) for participating in an alleged narcotics conspiracy.  Supporters feel that a septuagenarian with a broken body and a vibrant heart is a sterling candidate for a presidential commutation.  I agree.  But first we must face a troubling question.  Somebody entered into a conspiracy with a Mexican drug lord, but was it Ramsey Muniz or was it the federal government?

Eager for a big media splash and an easy conviction, the Houston office of the DEA treated their counterparts in Dallas to a series of carefully staged events while intentionally obscuring the truth.  Those who testified at trial had no idea what was going on; those who knew the truth did not testify.  The DEA got a big media win, a drug lord got a plane ticket back to Mexico, and Ramsey Muniz got a life sentence.  (more…)