Death Penalty
Two Posthumous Pardons in South Carolina
Published October 27, 2009 @ 07:07AM PT
Last week, the South Carolina pardon board voted unanimously to clear the names of two men executed in 1915 for a murder they may not have committed. The men -- Meeks and Thomas Griffin -- were great uncles of syndicated radio talk show host Tom Joyner (left), who sought the pardons after learning last year about the men’s story.
It was the first posthumous pardon ever granted in a capital case by the state of South Carolina.
I wrote about this case a couple of weeks ago, and I’m excited to be able to report on this positive outcome. Joyner was delighted with the news:
“It’s good for the community, it’s good for the nation. Anytime you can repair racism in this country is a step forward,” he said.
Police Chiefs: Death Penalty Doesn't Work
Published October 20, 2009 @ 04:05PM PT
A report released today by the Death Penalty Information Center finds that Police Chiefs don't believe the death penalty deters crime.
They also don't think it's a good use of taxpayer money.
Oh, and if they had to choose between life without parole (with victim restitution) and the death penalty, only 47% of them would choose death. That's exactly the same result as a Gallup poll of all Americans I reported on over the weekend.
Aren't police chiefs -- who see the results of violent crime up close, who come into contact with candidates for the death penalty -- uniquely qualified to evaluate its impact? I think they are. And they don't think it works.
Do 2/3 of Americans Really Support the Death Penalty?
Published October 17, 2009 @ 10:47AM PT
A new Gallup poll this week shows that support for the death penalty in the U.S. remains steady at about 65 percent. Is capital punishment impenetrable in the U.S., or are there cracks beneath the surface of this data?
The stats break down in some expected ways, like along party lines -- 81% of Republicans support capital punishment in murder cases while those weakling Democrats break down at 48% for and 47 against. But there are some surprising results here as well.
Despite growing awareness of DNA exonerations and increasing certainty that an innocent person has been put to death, support for executions hasn't dropped in this century. It did plummet in the 90s (from a high of 80% in support of the death penalty in 1993), and the advent of DNA testing could have been a factor in that. But the Gallup poll approached this issue directly, and one-third of Americans said innocent lives are a natural cost of an important punishment. Digging even deeper, of those who said they believed an innocent person was executed in the last five years, 57% support capital punishment.
“To Kill, or Not to Kill?” Asketh Ohio
Published October 12, 2009 @ 12:59PM PT
Cast of Characters:
Romell Broom, sentenced to death for raping and killing a 14-year-old girl in Cleveland in 1984. Most recently scheduled for execution September 15, 2009.
Lawrence Reynolds, sentenced to death for the 1994 murder and attempted rape of a 67-year-old woman in Cuyahoga Falls. Most recently scheduled for execution October 8, 2009.
Governor Ted Strickland (D), elected for his first term in the governor’s mansion in 2007 after 12 years in the House of Representatives. Strickland’s first term in the House ended with his narrow defeat in the landslide elections of 1994. He re-took the seat in 1996, and maintained it for five more terms. Governor Strickland once put his Ph.D. in counseling psychology to work among the prisoners at Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, where Broom is an inmate. Before October, 2009, Governor Strickland had delayed three executions, permitting further review, and commuted two death sentences. Of the three executions in which he did not intervene, two were carried out and another was stayed by The Sixth Circuit. Governor Strickland is up for re-election in 2010.
Attorney General Richard Cordray (D), elected for his first term as AG in last year after serving two years as the states treasurer. Cordray began his legal career clerking at the Supreme Court. He is also an undefeated five-time Jeopardy! champion. With a string of defeats for higher office under his belt, including runs for both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, Cordray is generally regarded as having aspirations for higher office. AG Cordray is up for re-election in 2010.
The Sixth Circuit, an esteemed collection of 15 federal judges -- predominantly Republican-appointed white men -- who are the final authority for the vast majority of criminal appeals -- disproportionately from less privileged people of color -- in Michigan, Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio.
Scene: Ohio, a state with a history of sloppy executions. In 2006, the State’s executioners took almost 90 minutes to complete their task at the expense of inmate and former intravenous drug user Joseph Lewis Clark because of problems finding a vein. Once they found a vein, it then collapsed. Before his ultimate execution, Clark repeatedly told State officials, “It don’t work. It don’t work.”
Texas Gov. Ducks Arson Investigation
Published October 01, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
The Willingham case was getting too hot for Rick Perry.
In a surprising move yesterday, the Texas Governor removed three of the eight members of a state forensic panel that was set to review arson evidence in the 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham at a public hearing on Friday. The panel's chairman and two other members were pulled by Perry, and Friday's meeting has been cancelled.
Willingham was executed in 2004 despite evidence available at the time that the arson science that led to his conviction was flat-out wrong. Further reports from independent arson experts since Willingham's execution have proven that he was innocent. I've written about the case before here and here.
Perry's move - two days before an arson expert was expected to testify that Willingham was convicted based on "myths" - certainly didn't fly under the political radar, however.
Mentally Ill Prisoners on Japan's Death Row
Published September 10, 2009 @ 05:11PM PT
A report released today by Amnesty International lays out evidence that Japan has executed mentally ill prisoners in recent years - despite a federal law and an international agreement against the practice - and that conditions on the country's death row are driving sane prisoners to develop mental illness.
This news would be nothing new in the U.S., but we don't expect it from Japan. The country has a famously low crime rate, but the incarceration rate has quietly doubled over the last two decades. And, as the graph above shows, Japan's death row population has nearly doubled since 2003. Japan's death row is shrouded in secrecy. Combine this with Japan's cultural taboo against discussing mental illness, and you get an invisible population on death row. Little was known about the 103 people on death row until a group opposed to capital punishment secretly interviewed 78 of them last year for the book "Please Don't Extinguish the Spark of Life."
The Amnesty report chronicles specific cases of individuals executed in the last decade despite clear signs of their mental illness. But I found some of the report's details on death row conditions particularly surprising and troubling. For example, prisoners learn just hours before their death that they will be executed. Once appeals are exhausted, the process moves quickly. Death warrants are signed, prisoners are informed, and then the execution is carried out - the same day. Waiting for those footsteps day after day is completely unimaginable.
New Yorker: Texas Executed an Innocent Man
Published August 31, 2009 @ 06:51AM PT
A report published today in the New Yorker finds that Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 in Texas for setting a fire that killed his three daughters, was innocent. He is pictured at left with his two-year-old daughter Amber, who died in the fire.
This is incredibly sad news, but it also marks the most conclusive evidence yet that an innocent person has been put to death in the United States. We’ve known for years that the arson science used to convict Willingham was flat-out wrong. Today’s New Yorker report goes further: it dismantles the case that sent Willingham to his death, point-by-point, proving that every shred of evidence used against him was false.
Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck wrote in the Huffington Post: "There can no longer be any doubt that an innocent person has been executed. The question now turns to how we can stop it from happening again."
And the New York Times adds, in an editorial today: "The Willingham investigation, which is continuing, is further evidence that the criminal justice system is far too flawed to justify imposing a death penalty."
I strongly, strongly urge you to read David Grann’s incredible New Yorker piece in its entirety. I can’t imagine that you can leave the story with trust in our system of capital punishment.
(Disclaimer: We’re reporting on this story today at the Innocence Project, where I work when I'm not blogging here at change.org. The Innocence Project has been involved in investigations of the Willingham case, but views expressed here are mine alone.)
