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Vendaval -> RE: Studes Say Death Penalty Deters Crime (6/11/2007 4:13:55 PM)
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selfbnd411,
You have to ask the question of how well the system is working if 100-200 people have been exonerated. How many years of their lives were lost to a broken justice system? The last paragraph address your query about a lack of DNA evidence to prove innocence of people already executed by the state.
Here is just one of many examples -
" Cruel and incredible: the case of Roger Coleman "
...his case history illustrates many of the structural flaws which can result in mistaken executions. Its troubling outcome establishes beyond doubt that the authorities in the USA are prepared to execute prisoners even when confronted with substantial questions about their actual guilt.
All too frequently, compelling new claims of innocence are never addressed during the appeal process because of procedural barriers intended to prevent undue delay in carrying out death sentences. This judicial vacuum can lead to bizarre events immediately prior to an execution, where substantial doubt over the prisoner's guilt remains but all legal avenues of appeal have been exhausted.
On 22 May 1992, Roger Coleman was put to death by the state of Virginia. Years after his conviction, new evidence was uncovered which implicated a different suspect and which challenged the prosecution’s theory of the crime. So troubling were the lingering uncertainties concerning his guilt that Governor Douglas Wilder offered Coleman a polygraph test (also known as a 'lie detector'). The offer inferred that if Coleman passed the test, the Governor might reconsider his decision not to commute the death sentence. The test monitors the assumed rise in the heart rate and blood pressure caused by the stress of lying to determine truthfulness. It was carried out on the day of Coleman's scheduled execution.
Strapped and wired for the test in a manner not unlike that used for the death by electrocution he would face later that same day, Coleman not surprisingly 'failed' the polygraph and was executed within hours. Governor Wilder later told the press: "If he had passed...it could have affected what the ultimate result would have been".(5)
Roger Coleman was charged with the 1981 rape and murder of his sister-in-law, Wanda McCoy. Too poor to afford a private attorney, he was represented at trial by court-appointed lawyers who had never handled a murder or rape case before and who neglected to fully investigate many significant points of evidence. At trial, the defence failed to challenge crucial aspects of the prosecution's case, severely limiting the scope of Coleman's post-conviction appeals.
Although the case against him was entirely circumstantial, Roger Coleman was sentenced to death. The only direct evidence came from the testimony of Roger Matney, a jail-house informant who claimed that Coleman had confessed to the crime. A month before the trial, all four sentences which Matney was serving were suspended and he was released from custody on the urging of Coleman's prosecutor. Matney has since recanted his testimony.
On initial appeal, Coleman was represented by attorneys who failed to file a timely notice of appeal with the Virginia Supreme Court. The necessary paperwork was inadvertently filed just after the 30-day deadline had expired. Prosecutors requested that the Court dismiss the appeal without addressing its merits because it was "procedurally defaulted"; the Court wrote a one-paragraph order summarily denying Coleman's petition without review.
The federal courts ruled that Coleman could not appeal on constitutional issues because he had "waived" his state review by filing after the deadline. The US Supreme Court agreed, citing the need to show adequate respect for the findings of state courts and the obligation to protect state officials from having to endure uncertainty and undue delay in the resolution of criminal cases. The Supreme Court's decision in Coleman v. Thompson created a new rule under which almost any failure of an inmate to meet the procedural requirements of the state courts results in forfeiture of the right to file a habeas corpus petition in federal court.(6)
According to the Supreme Court decision, "Coleman must bear the risk of attorney error that results in procedural default". The Court further ruled that Coleman had no right to challenge mistakes made by his appellate attorneys, since he was not constitutionally entitled to a lawyer at that point in the proceedings.
Before his arrest, Roger Coleman was a coal miner in rural Virginia. It defies all reason to presume that he was fully versed in Virginia capital trial procedures and the complexities of Federal habeas corpus appeals. For the US Supreme Court to conclude that the defendant must bear the fatal consequences of mistakes made by his lawyers is to render meaningless the most basic legal protections afforded by the US Constitution.
Once a prisoner is executed in the USA, the case is considered legally closed. The US criminal justice system offers no legal mechanism to review posthumous claims and uncover lethal error. It will likely never be known with absolute certainty if Roger Coleman was guilty or innocent of the crime for which he was put to death. Nonetheless, his case history illustrates many of the structural flaws which can result in mistaken executions. Its troubling outcome establishes beyond doubt that the authorities in the USA are prepared to execute prisoners even when confronted with substantial questions about their actual guilt."
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR510691998
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ORIGINAL: selfbnd411
quote:
ORIGINAL: Alumbrado
Without having been present during the crime, or lacking X-ray vision, time travel, or telepathy, none of us are going to 'know' absolutely who is or isn't an innocent person, so I'm not sure what your point is...
You can't cite DNA exonerations to support your claim and then ignore the fact that not a single executed convict has been proven to be innocent by DNA evidence.
So 100-200 people have been exonerated? That's fantastic imo. The system works. As time goes on and we get into murder cases from the mid 1990s, the accuracy rate will only skyrocket.
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