The Guardian has a fascinating story about the Columbia Human Rights Law Review‘s expose of a case in which, its exhaustive research indicates, an innocent man was executed in Texas.
Some excerpts:
From the moment of his arrest until the day of his death by lethal injection six years later, DeLuna consistently protested he was innocent. He went further – he said that though he hadn’t committed the murder, he knew who had. He even named the culprit: a notoriously violent criminal called Carlos Hernandez.
The two Carloses were not just namesakes – or tocayos in Spanish, as referenced in the title of the Columbia book. They were the same height and weight, and looked so alike that they were sometimes mistaken for twins. When Carlos Hernandez’s lawyer saw pictures of the two men, he confused one for the other, as did DeLuna’s sister Rose…
At the trial, DeLuna’s defence team told the jury that Carlos Hernandez, not DeLuna, was the murderer. But the prosecutors ridiculed that suggestion. They told the jury that police had looked for a “Carlos Hernandez” after his name had been passed to them by DeLuna’s lawyers, without success. They had concluded that Hernandez was a fabrication, a “phantom” who simply did not exist. The chief prosecutor said in summing up that Hernandez was a “figment of DeLuna’s imagination”.
Four years after DeLuna was executed, Liebman decided to look into the DeLuna case as part of a project he was undertaking into the fallibility of the death penalty. He asked a private investigator to spend one day – just one day – looking for signs of the elusive Carlos Hernandez.
By the end of that single day the investigator had uncovered evidence that had eluded scores of Texan police officers, prosecutors, defense lawyers and judges over the six years between DeLuna’s arrest and execution. Carlos Hernandez did indeed exist.
Liebman’s investigator tracked down within a few hours a woman who was related to both the Carloses. She supplied Hernandez’s date of birth, which in turn allowed the unlocking of Hernandez’s criminal past as the case rapidly unravelled…
You should just go read the whole thing. Or for that matter, the original study.
This, of course, is one of the main reasons I oppose the death penalty. There are others, but this one is enough for a lengthy discussion…
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Great story and terrific reason to get rid of the death penalty. But not THE BEST reason. THE BEST reason is one of pure pragmatism. What we wish to accomplish with any penal system is the protection of the society. What better way to promote killing than sanctioning it through the use of the death penalty. These crazed killers are so in need of publicity that they will do anything, even commit heinous murder, to achieve that goal. So why should we do something that serves only to greatly increase the number of murders that get committed? Get rid of the death penalty and the murder rate drops.
Death penalty litigation is far more costly in real dollars than life without parole.
I read this story on yahoo today. I found it shocking. I haven’t read the entire study but just the rush to judgement and mistakes were unforgivable.
As far as abolishing the death penalty I don’t know. The fact you can’t undo a mistake is terrible. Is it an effective deterrent though?
Most industrial nations have abolished capital punishment I believe. Does it have a notable effect on crime rates?
I’m not arguing for or against it here. I just don;t have enough info.
“What we wish to accomplish with any penal system is the protection of the society. What better way to promote killing than sanctioning it through the use of the death penalty.”
I thought it was rehabilitation. A job the US does pretty terrible I think.
As opposed as I am to capital punishment, I generally don’t think that argument is a strong one.
The reason it’s so costly is that — largely on account of folks like us that oppose it — the process of carrying a capital case to execution is dragged out, and dragged out, and dragged out to an incredible degree.
If advocates of the death penalty had their way, executions would be carried out with alacrity. And indeed, if the penalty were just and wise, I’d agree with them. If it’s right to execute person X, then justice is best carried out swiftly.
I don’t know if I’m explaining this right, but it makes sense to me. I think its best to attack the essential factors straight on — is capital punishment just, and is it necessary? In both cases, I believe the answer is no.
Likely guilty of something else. No sleep lost here.
As far as abolishing the death penalty, would you prefer we just lock up the 20 year old who raped a 78 year old woman in Kansas to death and hit her 80 year old WWII war veteran husband so hard that he eventually died from the injury? He then stole their car and took about $20 in cash that he found. Would you prefer we just lock up people who rape children and infants? Face it, some people are just better off dead.
Not only am I for capitol punishment, I’m for public executions.
“Most industrial nations have abolished capital punishment I believe. Does it have a notable effect on crime rates?”
How many of those have the crime problems we have in this country?
“If advocates of the death penalty had their way, executions would be carried out with alacrity.”
Which is why we need to have court houses built in close proximity to a tree with sturdy branches.
Once convicted, they get marched out the back door to a rope and a 3 legged stool.
Wow, Brad–a break with your Church on the death penalty. The Catholic Church doesn’t oppose the death penalty because it isn’t implemented justly or wisely. It’s a right-to-life argument.
So leaving Charles Manson in jail for 50 years is better for society? I guess there is that chance that he didn’t do it, right?
There are cases where there is no doubt. Those cases should result in swift justice as a form of punishment, not as a potential deterrent.
A criminal caught in a gunfight with police who kills officers and then is captured doesn’t deserve to live.
The best arguement for keeping the death penalty around is that it makes for a good negotiation tool: In SC at least, you can’t take a plea bargain for the death penalty (and why would you?) Basically, the state will take the death penalty off of the table, if you plea to 30 years or whatnot. It’s mostly a bargaining chip.
An acquaintance of mine was saying the other day that if it was proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the person did, in fact commit murder, then he/she should face the death penalty. He gave as an example Susan Smith. There’s no doubt that she drowned her children. The problem is, that when it’s that clear the person usually pleads guilty, and those who plead guilty to a slightly lesser crime, one that does not demand the death penalty. The ones we kill usually refuse to plead.
I support the death penalty 150%. I don’t support it, generally, the way we do it now.
I think the death penality should be reserved for a few select crimes, crimes that are proven with multiple eye witnesses IN ADDITION TO forensic evidence.
In the absense of both, the death penalty shouldn’t be on the table.
If you HAVE to execute someone, the way the Chinese do it is best. Shoot them in the back of the head without warning, so they don’t know it’s coming.
Brad,
I agree. The fact that it is so costly is due to our societal reticence about it. Any careful perusal of history shows how shockingly wrong we have been in many cases of rushing to judgement.
We could defray the cost of executions by making them public and selling spectator seats, broadcast rights – and to one lucky winner – the right to throw the switch on Ol’ Sparky!
Every single post misses the point. The death penalty INCREASES the rate of murder. Killers are MORE likely to kill because it gives them a sense of celebrity. Why do you think Ted Bundy went to Florida? It wasn’t because of the great tourist attractions or low tax rate. No. It was because they had a tough pro-capital punishment law. And those poor Florida State coeds paid the price. So regardless of the justice implications capital punishment is a negative deterrent.
@Burl – I prefer we make execution public events. Schedule them for Friday afternoons. Advertise, get sponsors, hire food vendors, hire balloon noose makers for the kids, etc…
@bud – I don’t think that the death penalty attracts killers any more than anti-drunk driving laws attract drunk drivers.
My problem with the death penalty is that it is so often wrapped around the notion of justice when, in so many cases, it is actually motivated only by retribution. Justice, to my mind, somehow ‘balances’ the situation for the victim and/or those who were close to the victim. I’m not sure that happens in an execution in most cases.
Most death penalty cases come down to societal outrage at the actions of the perpetrator. They are not an attempt to deter crime. They are not an attempt at bringing about justice. They are about society rendering retribution for an ultimate offense to its sensibilities.
I think society has the right to be retributive, but let’s just be clear about how and why. Clearly some people are just ‘no damned good’ and, if we deem that we cannot tolerate them among us, then we have to decide how to isolate them from us permanently and consistently.
We have neither now. I, for one, come down on the side of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for ‘capital’ convictions. That fits my notion of retribution and still leaves open the possibility of ‘justice’ for the defendant if new evidence proves the conviction was in error. Execution does not.
“The death penalty INCREASES the rate of murder. Killers are MORE likely to kill because it gives them a sense of celebrity. Why do you think Ted Bundy went to Florida? It wasn’t because of the great tourist attractions or low tax rate. No. It was because they had a tough pro-capital punishment law.”
I don’t really agree with that. I just thought he was a sociopath and thats where he ended up.
Only example I know is of Pee Wee Gaskins. The reason he made the clock bomb was because he wanted everyone to know in prison that he was the baddest MFer there.
He thought it was BS that people had sentences tougher than him since that was a mark of honor to him. So he killed Tyler and was back at the top of the food chain.
From a strictly moral point I don’t agree with the death penalty. I’m more in the “better to let 100 criminals go than convict 1 innocent man” crowd.
I don’t really think its a deterrent but that’s a layman’s opinion. I’d rather leave it to professional law enforcement to decide.
@tavis – “From a strictly moral point I don’t agree with the death penalty. I’m more in the “better to let 100 criminals go than convict 1 innocent man” crowd.”
So when are you moving to your land of clear conscience, New Orleans? I hear it’s lovely there again, almost pre-Katrina.
“So when are you moving to your land of clear conscience, New Orleans? I hear it’s lovely there again, almost pre-Katrina.”
America was founded with the idea that we are innocent until proven guilty. The Blackstone argument was still controversial at the time.
I am not advocating emptying out the prisons and letting all go free.
“So when are you moving to your land of clear conscience, New Orleans? ”
Being morally against capital punishment doesn’t mean you want to have anarchy in the street.
Especially since I said “I’d rather leave it to professional law enforcement to decide.”
I don’t want to turn this into a states rights argument but in many ways it is. If SC wants it fine. I’m just a tiny cog. If MA and other more liberal states wants to abolish it I’m fine with that too.
The death penalty information center has a few good articles on the arbitrariness of the death penalty. Kill a white person your more likely to catch a needle.
“It is becoming ever more obvious that whether or not you get the death penalty depends a great deal more on who you are than what you did. We’ll execute William Henry Hance, but not Robert Hanssen, perhaps the most dangerous mole ever to sell U.S. secrets to a foreign power. And we won’t execute Andrea Yates, the Texas woman who coldly and methodically drowned her five children.”
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/538
Also here are some charts that also show how race can be a huge factor.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/race-death-row-inmates-executed-1976#defend
I can’t morally support a system that seems on the surface so unfair.
Still saying that I believe its a states issue. I am in the minority on this I know in SC.
There are ample reasons to continue the death penalty, not the very least of which is to hold lawyers accountable.
Without a death penalty (which is already imposed by nature for the ignorant and unfortunate: see “Darwin Awards”) and the absence of which would promote early release not life sentences (Great Britain), lawyers would minimize responsibility for every felony less than homicide by proportionality alone (imagine the relief for rampant pedophiles)!
Brad, your Dad should have taught you that the Navy liked to make examples of people who committed misdeeds first and foremost to set an example for others. That is exactly what they taught me!
While emotion is heart-tugging, it is potentially distracting from both the harder facts of each case and the mission of due process.
Omitted from your story (I believe) are these important facts (Report questioning execution doesn’t sway lawyers- The Associated Press-Wednesday, May 16, 2012:
“The defense lawyer for a Texas inmate [Carlos DeLuna] executed two decades ago said Wednesday he isn’t convinced the state wrongly put a man to death despite a new report that again questions the case. …
But the former prosecutor said there were other witnesses who said a man with a knife matching DeLuna’s description at the convenience store. The case, he said, “was tried as clean as a hound’s tooth. I did not skate close to the edge like some guys do.”
Want to reduce death penalty trial costs? Invoke the Constitutional right to a speedy trial.
“There are ample reasons to continue the death penalty, not the very least of which is to hold lawyers accountable.”
How is executing their client holding them accountable? They get paid the same either way.
“lawyers would minimize responsibility for every felony less than homicide by proportionality alone (imagine the relief for rampant pedophiles)!”
Don’t follow your argument. Lawyers already try to get their clients out of trouble. Its their job.
Are you trying to advocate killing the accused to avoid lawyers filing motions and appeals?
“Brad, your Dad should have taught you that the Navy liked to make examples of people who committed misdeeds first and foremost to set an example for others. That is exactly what they taught me!”
Please. I WAS in the navy. I’ve sat on more salt water in the restroom that most people have sailed over.
Navy Non judicial punishment was a kangaroo court. The Captain had complete control and their was absolutely no requirement for evidence at all. All that had to be accomplished was the Captain to rule you guilty. You didn’t even have the right to an attorney.
I couldn’t imagine prosecuting a serious crime in a situation like that.
““The defense lawyer for a Texas inmate [Carlos DeLuna] executed two decades ago said Wednesday he isn’t convinced the state wrongly put a man to death despite a new report that again questions the case. …
But the former prosecutor said there were other witnesses who said a man with a knife matching DeLuna’s description at the convenience store. The case, he said, “was tried as clean as a hound’s tooth. I did not skate close to the edge like some guys do.”
Do you expect them to say Oops I screwed up and a guy got killed over it?
“Want to reduce death penalty trial costs? Invoke the Constitutional right to a speedy trial.”
So cut the cost out by reducing the number of appeals? I’m all for streamlining processes but I can’t support killing first then issuing a strong apology letter if we screwed up.
I believe death penalty is wrong for a civilized society to carry out, for two reasons, the first on moral grounds, the second reason being its permanence, its “un-correctability.”
Doug’s point about Manson or someone you’re SURE committed the murder is well-taken…however, there still has to be a judicial mechanism in place to “certify” the “certainty” of guilt. So what is that process, other than a kind of trial anyway? A line still has to be drawn to indicate at which point a court of law can be “certain” Defendant X committed these crimes. Even confession does not fall under that umbrella: our judicial history is littered with examples of false confessions, coerced or not.
So in the end, the judicial process still has to grind its gears, even in what might be thought of as “slam-dunk” cases. For me it seems the financial cost of keeping a Manson or Sirhan in jail for years and years is not burdening us as much as the crushing costs of building more and more prisons and incarcerating many who probably should not be jailed, partly as a result of our misguided “war on drugs.”
…and to all those here who have expressed support for the death penalty, the scrolling chart you can find hereis perhaps the strongest argument I can make to persuade you to rethink.
The number of executions we carried out in 2011 in the US places us 5th in a “Top Ten” list worldwide of nations implementing capital punishment. Do we really want to be mentioned in the same breath with China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Yemen, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, and Bangladesh? Is that a group of nations we can be proud to stand with in terms of our justice system? Really????
Phillip’s “You-know-who-else-executes-people-HITLER!” style argument at the end there notwithstanding, I agree with what he said.
The foremost reason for my opposition to the death penalty is a moral one. It’s hard for me to accept that humanity should determine that another person has forfeited his right to live — that he is no longer deserving of his own life. And then there are practical reasons which I find convincing; which are the financial cost and the potential for execution of the innocent.
Tavis M:
Q: “How is executing their client holding them accountable?”
A: As I stated, if the death penalty is eliminated (watch carefully in states that already have), proportionality will gradually reduce the length of sentences for other felonies. Reduced sentences make the practice of criminal law less responsible simply because there is less at stake. Never imagine a lawyer would ever lower fees, however.
Q: “Do you expect them to say Oops I screwed up and a guy got killed over it?”
A: Due process requires integrity of officers of the court, which these gentlemen happen to be. Without it, trials have little integrity — a far greater risk to the citizens and their republic than mistakes (and this one is still debatable) made under the purview of a judge and a trial attorney.
Q: Can Tavis imagine the relief for rampant pedophiles when and if the death penalty is abolished?
A(Don’t ever put words in my mouth again, “Admiral”): “I’ve sat on more salt water in the restroom that most people have sailed over.”
@Phillip
Those numbers are raw totals. Divide it by the population of the country and it doesn’t have the same impact.
I am comfortable with the idea that of the number of murders committed in this country each year, a very small percentage of the criminals are given a punishment that fits the crime and are no longer a burden on society.
My brother works as a guard for inmates who undergo surgery in hospitals. Some of these patients have committed multiple homicides yet receive full medical treatment costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
@tavis – “Do you expect them to say Oops I screwed up and a guy got killed over it? ”
Sounds about right, I know many doctors who have all told me that you don’t officially become a doctor until you’ve screwed up and someone died because of it. I’m sure there are lawyers who would say you haven’t become a real lawyer until you’ve screwed up a case and sent an innocent man to jail for a long, long time or screwed up and allowed a murderer to go free.
@Doug – I know a doctor who works one day every other week at the prison on Bush Road. Many if not all prisoners are examined by a physician who stand near the door while the prisoner sits handcuffed to an exam table across the room with one or two guards between them. There are prisoners he exams for serious illnesses and never touches or is allowed to get within arms length, try to diagnose pneumonia without being able to use a stethoscope to listen to his lungs.
Also, if there is an inmate who’s supposed to be escorted out of the prison to a medical facility and someone calls in sick that day and there is nobody else to take the prisoner, guess who misses their doctor’s appointment that week. I’m sure your brother could tell you dozens of stories like this.
Correction, Broad River Road.
@Doug: you’re correct, if the rankings are made proportionally to population, the US drops well out of the top 10, but again, even looking at the context of the top 25 countries executing individuals proportional to their population, I find that the list still is not one filled with countries we would think of as consistent with our values.
And that brings me to David, who agreed with my opinion but not the validity of my last argument: please understand that my argument goes far beyond “a bad country does it too.” If I’d only cited Iran, or only cited Sudan, you could say that. But my point was not just which other countries execute as many people as we do. It’s more about who does NOT execute people. The only country in the world that I would call a healthy functioning democracy besides us where capital punishment is legal is Japan. And their actual rate of execution is extremely low. For the most part on this issue, we are an outlier among civilized liberal democracies. It’s just a fact.
I’ve never heard an lawyer say you weren’t a real lawyer until you screwed up a case and set a murderer free or sent some to jail–that sounds like bad TV/fiction writing. For one thing, lawyers pretty much understand the system–one lawyer is just one cog in the process–there’s another lawyer on the other side, a jury/fact-finding judge, investigators–you are never an Army of One.
@juan caruso
“A: As I stated, if the death penalty is eliminated (watch carefully in states that already have), proportionality will gradually reduce the length of sentences for other felonies. Reduced sentences make the practice of criminal law less responsible simply because there is less at stake. Never imagine a lawyer would ever lower fees, however. ”
I tried to find the statistics for this but I couldn’t. Not doubting their existence though just couldn’t find them.
“Q: Can Tavis imagine the relief for rampant pedophiles when and if the death penalty is abolished?
A(Don’t ever put words in my mouth again, “Admiral”): “I’ve sat on more salt water in the restroom that most people have sailed over.”
My comment was addressed at your using Captains Mast as a model to prosecute Capital Crimes. Article 13 is basically a Captains discretion to be able to render judgement on pretty petty crimes. It requires absolutely no evidence. All the Captain has to say is that you committed the offense.
Also during my time in the navy (9 1/2 years) most the time Mast was more for all the things you did before rather than the last offense. It also was inherently unfair as only blue shirts could be held accountable at mast. Captain couldn’t strip an officer’s bars or a Cheif’s anchor. Officer’s that screw up just get moved to a shore billet till they Max out then are forced to retire. Saw a JO on the boat get drunk and steal a bulldozer. His punishment was he didn’t get Officer of the year for squadron.
As per the “salty” comment I referring to my opinion that you were speaking about a system that you didn’t indicate that you had an experience in. If you do have some time in military service I’ll withdraw my statement.
Juan, overall you have a pretty valid arguement. Just we are on different sides of it.
“Sounds about right, I know many doctors who have all told me that you don’t officially become a doctor until you’ve screwed up and someone died because of it. I’m sure there are lawyers who would say you haven’t become a real lawyer until you’ve screwed up a case and sent an innocent man to jail for a long, long time or screwed up and allowed a murderer to go free.”
Doctors don’t call it a practice for nothing. Its one thing when you are dealing with an inexact science. Every person is different. They respond different ways to medicine and treatment.
I understand that there is going to be mistakes made. Thats the point. If you convict someone then march them out the door to the gallows you give absolutely no chance to rectify the mistake.
In the end you can take back a wrongly convicted person. You can’t take back death.
“For the most part on this issue, we are an outlier among civilized liberal democracies”
Even for a convicted person that is 100% guilty I still can’t morally execute them. I just want our government to be better than the murderer.
I’m comfortable with the United States having the death penalty- as long as there is a court system, appeals process, and judicial review of the entire process.
I don’t think the death penalty deters crime. But that’s not a reason to have the death penalty as an option in my opinion.
As I have said, I think the death penalty should be an option for our worst crimes, crimes in which witness testimony is backed up by clear physical evidence.
I don’t think the death penalty deters crime.
-Barry
Ya think. We are one of the few developed countries to still have the death penalty and we have the highest murder rate. The correlation is just too strong to think the death penalty is anything but a very good ad campaign to promote killing.
I agree- I dismiss the notion that it deters crime.
But I support the death penalty- just not the way we always do it in the United States.
“The correlation is just too strong to think the death penalty is anything but a very good ad campaign to promote killing.”
Really? Show us the data. Start here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cities_by_crime_rate
Louisiana has the death penalty but has only used it once in the last decade. Yet New Orleans has the highest rate of murders (49.1 per 100,000 people in 2010).
The seven highest murder rates in the country are in New Orleans, St. Louis, Baltimore, Detroit, Newark, Oakland, and Washington, D.C.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the correlation there.