Cameron Todd Willingham was almost certainly not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt - and probably innocent. Nonetheless he was convicted of murdering his three children by arson and ultimately executed.
"Over the past five years, the Willingham case has been reviewed by nine of the nation's top fire scientists - first for the Tribune, then for the Innocence Project, and now for the commission. All concluded that the original investigators relied on outdated theories and folklore to justify the determination of arson. The only other evidence... against Willingham was twice-recanted testimony..."
Carlos DeLuna was almost certainly not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt - and probably innocent. Nonetheless he was convicted of the stabbing murder of a gas station clerk and also ultimately executed.
... 29 years after DeLuna was arrested, Liebman and his team published a mammoth report in the Human Rights Law Review that concludes DeLuna paid with his life for a crime he likely did not commit...
Among the key findings in the Columbia team's report:
- The eyewitness statements actually conflict with each other.
- Photos of a bloody footprint and blood spatter on the walls suggest the killer would have had blood on his shoes and pant legs, yet DeLuna's clothes were clean.
- Prosecutors and police ignored tips unearthed in the case files that Carlos Hernandez... had killed Lopez. Hernandez... bore a striking resemblance to DeLuna.
Texas has scheduled yet another execution of yet another person almost certainly not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt - and probably innocent. Rodney Reed, a young black man, was convicted in 1998 of the murder of Stacey Stites, a young white woman, in 1996.
Stacey was bethrothed to a cop, Jimmy Fennell, while seeing Rodney on the side. The tale continues on in great depth with subplots of evidence ignored and destroyed, witnesses uncalled, and the suspicious suicide of the police investigator originally assigned to the case (the latter detailed in the documentary film noted below). Stacey's fiance is now in prison, convicted of sexual assault and kidnapping.
Go to the end of diary for actions you can take or continue over the flip.
A one-hour documentary about the case, State vs. Reed, is available on Youtube. Here's the trailer:
There's also a more recent, shorter video, Framed: How an Innocent Man Ended Up on Death Row in Texas.
Texas executes more than a third of those condemned to death in the United States, and more people than the rest of the industrialized world combined (which has pretty much abolished the death penalty aside from the notable exception of Japan).
Since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976, there have been 1,295 executions, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Texas leads with 482 executions.
(From the Carlos DeLuna article)
With a judicial system
so heavily tilted against blacks and the poor, and massively protective of cops (Fennell was originally considered the prime suspect but, as just one example of cops protecting their own, his apartment where Stacey and he spent the night before she was murdered was never searched), it was all but impossible for Reed to receive a real trial on the evidence nor, with an all-white jury, could he reasonably be said to have been tried by a jury of his peers.
With an appeals system which is more than willing to let innocent people die
Chief Justice William Rehnquist's majority opinion held that a claim of actual innocence based on newly discovered evidence did not state a ground for federal habeas relief.
Reed had little hope of overturning his conviction based on new evidence, the medical examiner recanting his statements about the case, or anything else, and in fact, his appeals have all been denied.
The role of prosecutor in this country is to amass a record of convictions, with massive pressure to indict someone, anyone, for heinous crimes. With this being the case, rather than their job being to determine truth or their having any incentive whatsoever to question whether they have sent an innocent person to prison... or death, there is essentially no hope of the prosecutors in this case or most others admitting a modicum of doubt once a conviction is secured.
Why does Texas stand out so starkly in all this? That's a question I have no good answer to, aside from the fact that since they condemn far more people to death per capita than anywhere else, they will inevitably end up with more innocent people being executed.
Reed's slender hope now is to convince a hearing panel in Texas to actually test all the DNA that was collected at the scene and in the truck Stacey, or Stacey's body, was in when she was transported to where her body was found.
In July, Reed was given an execution date of January 14, 2015. Now his lawyer, Bryce Benjet, who works with the Innocence Project, is fighting to secure DNA testing for crucial pieces of evidence - among them, the belt used to strangle Stites, as well as her torn pants, parts of which have never been tested. But the state is fighting those efforts, citing numerous procedural limitations.
"Frankly, what we're asking for is, I think, a pretty conservative thing," Benjet says, "To do DNA testing of evidence before you execute someone." A November 25 hearing has been scheduled to consider the request.
Here is a Change.org petition to that effect:
https://www.change.org/...
The people fighting for Reed, among them Bay Area activists who have sponsored multiple showings of State vs Reed locally, and the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, are asking people
TODAY, to call, FAX and/or email the Bastrop County DA's office and ask that they test ALL the DNA in Rodney's case!
Phone: 512-581-7125
Fax: 512-581-7133
Email: gayle.wilhelm@co.bastrop.tx.us
For updates:
Free Rodney Reed Facebook.
As the poster says, it's time to stop killing people who kill people to demonstrate that killing people is wrong. And it's especially time to stop killing people who could be exonerated... if they aren't already dead.
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8:29 AM PT: New Yorker article about Cameron Todd Willingham and the disaster the Texas Judicial System is.
Hat tip to Roadbed Guy.