The Injustice Of The Death Penalty In America

John Edward Green Jr. is on trial in Houston, charged with fatally shooting a woman in a 2008 robbery. Harris County Judge Kevin Fine, a Democratic judge in Republican Texas, has stated his decision whether to allow prosecutors to request the death penalty will “boil down to whether or not an innocent person has actually been executed” in Texas. Texas has a treasure trove of innocent people who’ve found themselves on death row. The problem isn’t those who’ve been exonerated, it’s those who haven’t.

Cameron Todd Willingham and Claude Jones are names that supporters of the death penalty don’t want to hear. Both were executed in Texas after trials left more questions than answers with evidence uncovered after both executions showing that both were likely innocent.

Cameron Todd Willingham was executed for the arson of his own home which killed his three daughters. He always claimed his innocence, even refusing a plea agreement in return for a life sentence. Nine independent and nationally renowned experts concluded that the fire in Willingham’s home was not arson. Despite expert testimony and pleas for a new hearing by several advocacy groups, Willingham was executed by lethal injection on February 17, 2004.

The case of Claude Jones is even more disconcerting. Arrested for a November 1989 liquor store robbery and murder, there were no witnesses that could identify him as the perpetrator. Jones was convicted by the testimony of a state chemist that a single hair found at the scene could only match Jones, and not the clerk or 12 other patrons of the liquor store who were tested. This after he initially concluded that the hair was too small to test. Jones was executed on December 7, 2000.

In June 2010, a Texas judge ordered DNA testing of the hair — which Jones’ attorneys had repeatedly requested during the trial — with the results in November showing that the hair belonged to the store clerk. Jones attorneys had appealed all the way up to then Gov. George W. Bush prior to the execution, only to have their request denied.

In 2000, Thomas Coleman, part of a federally-funded law enforcement, multi-jurisdictional narcotics task force in Tulia, was designated Texas law man of the year by then Texas Attorney General and current US Senator John Cornyn. Unfortunately for Coleman and Texas, it was uncovered that 38 of the convictions on Coleman’s cases were obtained under massively fraudulent and coercive circumstances. Thirty-five of the 38 were pardoned by Gov. Rick Perry in 2003, with one being a juvenile whose record was a expunged, and the other two ineligible because of a deferred-adjudication arrangement.

This is on top of more than 70 death row inmates that were exonerated of their crimes. Texas, which has the third most inmates on death row of any state in the country and since 1976 has executed nearly 4 times as many prisoners as the next closest state, seems unwilling to be deterred despite the obvious fallibility.

On January 11, 2003, Gov. George Ryan (R-Illinois) announced he was commuting the sentences of all 167 inmates on death row in his state. His rationale was that such a large percentage had been exonerated after conviction that the state couldn’t risk executing any more innocent people. Ryan was reviled by pro-death penalty groups across the nation, however because of the number of people exonerated in the state, his conscience left him no choice.

Now Harris County Judge Kevin Fine has stepped into the middle of the debate, refusing to rubberstamp what has become a mere formality in Texas jurisprudence: requesting the death penalty. While he declares he’s not attempting to initiate a referendum on capital punishment, his detractors say he is at the least misguided. Harris County prosecutors aren’t happy, and have tried unsuccessfully to have Fine removed from the case. Despite its moribund track record, Texas prosecutors see themselves as above reproach in their request for capital punishment.

Proponents of the death penalty are loath to discuss men like Willingham and Jones that suggest America’s system of capital punishment is completely broken. They’re unable to give consideration to those who may have been killed by the state inappropriately, and refuse to reconsider their positions. If you’ve listened to a debate on the death penalty, you’ll hear several standard arguments for the death penalty which never change.

There’s the religious argument, typified with ‘an eye for an eye’, which is curious coming from people who claim to worship the Prince of Peace. There’s the economic argument: why should we pay all the money it costs to keep a person alive and in jail after what he or she did, but little consideration is given to the economic realities. In Los Angeles County, a capital punishment trial costs $2 million, while the average cost of life imprisonment without parole is $1.5 million. Then there are those who suggest that the death penalty deters crime, although former US Atty. Gen. Janet Reno disagrees.

Race factors into the discussion as well. Since 1976, far more victims in capital murder cases were white, while far more defendants were black. Currently, minorities represent a disproportionate number of inmates on death row. Not surprisingly, white people support the death penalty to a much greater extent than do minorities. If white people were represented as disproportionately on death row as are minorities, they might feel differently.

So why the rush to kill people before we know for certain if they’re guilty? I believe it has to do with fear. Interestingly I see more fear generated by the events of 9/11 than existed during the Cold War in which we faced a nuclear-armed superpower. A constant barrage of messages from 24/7 cable news networks skew people’s perceptions of the world in which we live. It’s the same dynamic that caused the Puritans of Salem to kill witches. There’s something about killing someone else that makes people feel safer.

Larry Wohlgemuth was raised during the tumultuous 60s in the midst of sometimes violent civil rights and antiwar protests. After a stint in the Air Force during the Vietnam War, he earned a BBA degree from Washburn University. Wohlgemuth leans so far to the left he prefers to be called “Comrade”, and his book, “Capitalism’s Final Solution” is planned to be released in the spring, 2011. Larry is a contributor to Prose Before Hos and runs his own blog, It Begs the Question.