The 132nd Death Row Exoneree: Implications for the Troy Davis Case

One of the many disturbing aspects of capital punishment is that it has no guarantee against mistaken convictions and executions. This risk of mistakes was driven home again on May 12th, just days ago, when a Tennessee District Attorney dropped all charges against former death row inmate Paul House, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1986.

House spent 22 years on death row and was scheduled to be retried next month. In 2006 the U.S. Supreme Court, because he had raised a colorable claim of innocence, granted House the opportunity to challenge the legality of his conviction and death sentence on other grounds. That ruling merely gave him the opportunity to have a federal court decide whether he should be given a hearing on the question of a new trial. A federal court ultimately did determine that House was entitled to a new trial. House was released from prison in July 2008 pending his new trial. And DNA testing has excluded House as the murderer. Now that the District Attorney has dropped all charges against Paul House, he is the second exoneree this year, and the 132nd individual to be exonerated from death row since 1973.

The exoneration of Paul House ironically came on the 16th anniversary of the execution of Leonel Herrera, a Texas man, who was sentenced to death for the shooting deaths of two police officers. Herrera like, Paul House, had insisted he was innocent; affidavits indicated that his brother actually committed the crime. Herrera asked the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that existing procedural barriers not deny him the opportunity for a court to hear his strong claim of innocence but the Court ruled against him.

In his dissenting opinion in Herrera v. Collins, Justice Harry Blackmun said, in part, "Just as an execution without adequate safeguards is unacceptable, so too is an execution when the condemned prisoner can prove that he is innocent. The execution of a person who can show that he is innocent comes perilously close to simple murder."

If the nuanced distinction between why the legal system would provide an avenue for one prisoner to prove his innocence and spare his life where no such route existed for the other is lost on you, you are not alone. To make Justice Blackmun's point more bluntly, fidelity to the rule of law demands that strong claims of innocence not be denied a fair hearing -- especially when the punishment is death.

Now comes the case of Troy Anthony Davis, where the high court will again be presented with a strong claim of innocence. Troy Anthony Davis was sentenced to death in Georgia in 1991 for the murder of police officer Mark Allen MacPhail- a crime for which there is no physical evidence linking him to the shooting, in which seven of nine witnesses who named him as the killer have since recanted their testimony, saying in sworn affidavits that they were coerced or pressured into implicating Davis, and for which no murder weapon has been produced.

Davis, like House and Herrera, has been fighting for years for a new trial through which to prove his innocence. Last month the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that effort, saying that the affidavits from the witnesses who recanted were introduced "too late" in the process. In her dissenting opinion, Circuit Court Judge Rosemary Barkett wrote, "To execute Davis, in the face of a significant amount of proffered evidence that may establish his actual innocence, is unconscionable and unconstitutional."

If there is any lesson that should be learned from these cases it is that our capital punishment system has some serious flaws. Not the least of which is a sufficiently adequate process for assuring that no innocent man or women is executed. The route to safety is too obscured by technicalities.

The Troy Anthony Davis case presents another test for the system. We must be as determined as the lawyers and other advocates who worked tirelessly to save the life of Paul House to prevent the execution of Troy Anthony Davis. While it should not be true -- it is -- it will take an extraordinary effort to prevent a miscarriage of justice here.

The Paul House case is a chilling reminder of just how often the system makes mistakes.

It should strengthen our resolve in the Davis case.

(A Global Day of Action in support of Davis has been organized by Amnesty International USA for May 19th. For more information on scheduled events of that day, and what can be done to obtain clemency for Davis, visit http://www.aiusa.org./troydavis.)

Comments

[dudleysharp]

Troy Davis: Both sides need to be told

(1) Davis v Georgia, Georgia Supreme Court, 3/17/08
Full ruling http://www.gasupreme.us/pdf/s07a1758.pdf
Summary http://www.gasupreme.us/op_summaries/mar_17.pdf

" . . . the majority finds that 'most of the witnesses to the crime who have allegedly recanted have merely stated that they now do not feel able to identify the shooter.' "One of the affidavits 'might actually be read so as to confirm trial testimony that Davis was the shooter.' "

The murder occurred in 1989.


(2) "THE PAROLE BOARD'S CONSIDERATION OF THE TROY ANTHONY DAVIS CASE" , 9/22/08, http://www.pap.state.ga.us/opencms/opencms/

"After an exhaustive review of all available information regarding the Troy Davis case and after considering all possible reasons for granting clemency, the Board has determined that clemency is not warranted.­"

"The Board has now spent more than a year studying and considering this case. As a part of its proceedings, the Board gave Davis’ attorneys an opportunity to present every witness they desired to support their allegation that there is doubt as to Davis’ guilt. The Board heard each of these witnesses and questioned them closely. In addition, the Board has studied the voluminous trial transcript, the police investigation report and the initial statements of all witnesses. The Board has also had certain physical evidence retested and Davis interviewe­d."

contd

[dudleysharp]

contd 2

132 "innocents" scam - fact checking

1. "Case Histories: A Review of 24 Individuals Released from Death Row", Florida Commission on Capital Cases, 6/20/02, Revised 9/10/02 http://www.floridacapitalcases.state.fl.us/Publications/innocentsproject.pdf

83% error rate in "innocent" claims.

2. "Is 'the innocence list' an appropriate name?", 1/19/03
FRANK GREEN, TIMES-DISPATCH
http://www.stopcapitalpunishment.org/coverage/106.html

Dieter admits they don't discern between legal innocence and actual innocence.

3. The Death of Innocents: A Reasonable Doubt,
New York Times Book Review, p 29, 1/23/05, Adam Liptak,
national legal correspondent, NY Times

"To be sure, 30 or 40 categorically innocent people have been released from death row . . . ". That is out of the DPIC claimed 119 "exonerated", at that time, for a 75% error rate.

I suggest the "to be sure" is closer to 25.

4. CRITIQUE OF DPIC LIST ("INNOCENCE:FREED FROM DEATH ROW"), Ward Campbell, http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/DPIC.htm


5. "The Death Penalty Debate in Illinois", JJKinsella,6/2000, http://www.dcba.org/brief/junissue/2000/art010600.htm


6.THE DEATH PENALTY - ALL INNOCENCE ISSUES, Dudley Sharp
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2006/03/20/all-innocence-issues--the-death-penalty.aspx

Origins of "innocence" fraud

7. "Bad List", Ramesh Ponnuru, National Review, 9/16/02
www.nationalreview.com/advance/advance091602.asp#title5

How bad is DPIC?

8. "Not so Innocent", Ramesh Ponnuru,National Review, 10/1/02
www.nationalreview.com/ponnuru/ponnuru100102.asp

DPIC from bad to worse.

[dudleysharp]

contd 1

The 132 "innocencts" scam

Dieter knows that we are all speaking of actual innocence, those cases that have no connection to the murder(s). Therefore he just redefines exonerated and innocence.

Dieter "clarifies" the three ways that former death row inmates get onto their "exonerated" by "innocence" list.

"A defendant whose conviction is overturned by a judge must be further exonerated in one of three ways: he must be acquitted at a new trial, or the prosecutor must drop the charges against him, or a governor must grant an absolute pardon."

None establishes actual innocence.

DPIC has " . . . included supposedly innocent defendants who were still culpable as accomplices to the actual triggerman­."

DPIC: "There may be guilty persons among the innocents, but that includes all of us."

Good grief. DPIC wishes to apply collective guilt of capital murder to all of us.

Dieter states: "I don't think anybody can know about a person's absolute innocence.­" (Green). Dieter said he could not pinpoint how many are "actually innocent" -- only the defendants themselves truly know that, he said." (Erickson)

Dieter won't assert actual innocence in 1, 132 or 350 cases. He doesn't want to clarify a real number with proof of actual innocence - that would blow his entire deception.

Or, Dieter declares "If you are not proven guilty in a court of law, you're innocent." (Green)

Dieter would call Hitler and Stalin innocent. Those are his "standards".

contd

[dudleysharp]

The 132 death row "innocents" scam
Dudley Sharp, contact info below

The 132 "exonerated" from death row is a blatant scam, easily uncovered by fact checking.

Richard Dieter, head of the anti death penalty group Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) and DPIC produced the claims regarding the exonerated and innocents released from death row list. They redefine what exonerated and innocence mean according to their own perverse definitions.

How Dieter and DPIC define what "exonerated" or "innocent" means.

". . . (DPIC) makes no distinction between legal and factual innocence. " 'They're innocent in the eyes of the law,' Dieter says. 'That's the only objective standard we have.' "

That is untrue, of course. We are all aware of the differences between legal guilt and actual guilt and legal innocence (not guilty) and actual innocence, just as the courts are.

The only issue in the death penalty innocence debate is how many actual innocents are sent to death row and what is the probability of executing an actual innocent. Legal innocence is not the issue, for the simple fact that we cannot execute a legally innocent person. So the concern is over the actual innocent, those who had no connection to the murder(s).


contd

[인호 James]

This story is another good statement to show that the american law system has a big leak.
Luckily he is a free man now, but the imagination that he spent 23 years in prison is inhuman espcecially for an innocent person.
If the States would have a better law system (e.g.stric­t regulations for weapon use) the death quota
would drop down.
I hope this man finds his own way back to normal life.
Even with professional psychological support he might never forget how much he suffered!
I wish him all the best!