This Is One Reason Why I'm Against The Death Penalty

Wrong man was executed in Texas, probe says
He was the spitting image of the killer, had the same first name and was near the scene of the crime at the fateful hour: Carlos DeLunapaid the ultimate price and was executed in place of someone else in Texas in 1989, a report out Tuesday found.

Even "all the relatives of both Carloses mistook them," and DeLuna was sentenced to death and executed based only on eyewitness accounts despite a range of signs he was not a guilty man, said law professor James Liebman.

Liebman and five of his students at Columbia School of Law spent almost five years poring over details of a case that he says is "emblematic" of legal system failure.

DeLuna, 27, was put to death after "a very incomplete investigation. No question that the investigation is a failure," Liebman said.

The report's authors found "numerous missteps, missed clues and missed opportunities that let authorities prosecute Carlos DeLuna for the crime of murder, despite evidence not only that he did not commit the crime but that another individual, Carlos Hernandez, did," the 780-page investigation found.

That night Lopez called police for help twice to protect her from an individual with a switchblade.

The report, entitled "Los Tocayos Carlos: Anatomy of a Wrongful Execution," traces the facts surrounding the February 1983 murder of Wanda Lopez, a single mother who was stabbed in the gas station where she worked in a quiet corner of the Texas coastal city of Corpus Christi.
"Everything went wrong in this case," Liebman said.

"They could have saved her, they said 'we made this arrest immediately' to overcome the embarrassment," Liebman said.

Forty minutes after the crime Carlos DeLuna was arrested not far from the gas station.

He was identified by only one eyewitness who saw a Hispanic male running from the gas station. But DeLuna had just shaved and was wearing a white dress shirt -- unlike the killer, who an eyewitness said had a mustache and was wearing a grey flannel shirt.

Even though witnesses accounts were contradictory -- the killer was seen fleeing towards the north, while DeLuna was caught in the east -- DeLuna was arrested.

"I didn't do it, but I know who did," DeLuna said at the time, saying that he saw Carlos Hernandez entering the service station.

DeLuna said he ran from police because he was on parole and had been drinking.

Hernandez, known for using a blade in his attacks, was later jailed for murdering a woman with the same knife. But in the trial, the lead prosecutor told the jury that Hernandez was nothing but a "phantom" of DeLuna's imagination.

DeLuna's budget attorney even said that it was probable that Carlos Hernandez never existed.

However in 1986 a local newspaper published a photograph of Hernandez in an article on the DeLuna case, Liebman said.

Following hasty trial DeLuna was executed by lethal injection in 1989.

Up to the day he died in prison of cirrhosis of the liver, Hernandez repeatedly admitted to murdering Wanda Lopez, Liebman said.

"Unfortunately, the flaws in the system that wrongfully convicted and executed DeLuna -- faulty eyewitness testimony, shoddy legal representation and prosecutorial misconduct -- continue to send innocent men to their death today," read a statement that accompanies the report.

http://news.yahoo.com/wrong-man-executed-texas-probe-says-051125159.html

Of course, I'm against the Death Penalty in most cases whether it's pre-birth or post-birth.

 

I'm not against the death penalty, but I don't believe it's a just punishment until there has been careful scrutiny of the evidence by an independent non-profit organization that specializes in such cases. If there is any doubt as to the justification of the verdict, the punishment should be converted to nothing greater than life in prison.

 

If this is only one reason, would other reasons be that the death penalty is disproportionally applied to minorities, it puts the government in charge of executing its citizens, 17 states and the District of Columbia have outlawed the death penalty with no effect on violent crimes, and we are one of the last civilized countries that still have the death penalty?

 

Same here.

 

It has nothing to do with race these days. It has to do with money and what type of legal defense a person can afford.

 

How can you even say that with a straight face....assuming you believe what you are saying....and you are not trying to be sarcastic....and that you actually were speaking while you typed? You just have to examine the statistics....assuming that you believe in statistics....assuming that you know how to read statistics....assuming you are not locked into a false narrative that is unbreakable by facts...

Let's find out.

Race and the Death Penalty

The color of a defendant and victim's skin plays a crucial and unacceptable role in deciding who receives the death penalty in America. People of color have accounted for a disproportionate 43 % of total executions since 1976 and 55 % of those currently awaiting execution. A moratorium of the death penalty is necessary to address the blatant prejudice in our application of the death penalty.

The jurisdictions with the highest percentages of minorities on its death row:

U.S. Military (86%)
Colorado (80%)
U.S. Government (77%)
Louisiana (72%)
Pennsylvania (70%)

While white victims account for approximately one-half of all murder victims, 80% of all Capital cases involve white victims. Furthermore, as of October 2002, 12 people have been executed where the defendant was white and the murder victim black, compared with 178 black defendants executed for murders with white victims.

For many years reports from around the country have found that a pervasive racial prejudice in the application of the death penalty exists.

 

Do not look at the racial make up of those on death row. Look at the poverty level that the vast majority were in. OJ was what everyone always knew in the legal system. It is not the crime you did but the lawyer or legal team you got. Most trials are won by jury selection which at times comes into play where the trial is held, Then comes what is allowed into the court and playing the system. If OJ was a bankrupt ex football player who could not afford his own expert witnesses as well as a team to profile potential juriors before the trial, etc. He would have been found guilty.

 

But that ignores the race factor in poverty Andy, which likely supports Joe's point. Your point, IMO, is still valid...I'd say poverty is the number one reason, while race is number two.