That's the title of an OpEd in today's Asheville Citizen-Times in North Carolina. It's by Larry Cox, the Executive Director of Amnesty International USA. LINK
When the United States abolishes the death penalty, some of its most ardent proponents ironically may be remembered for having made the most effective case for its demise. Texas Governor Rick Perry's obvious attempt to suppress the truth in the supposed arson case against Cameron Todd Willingham, executed in 2004 for a crime that probably didn’t occur, reveals the heinousness of capital punishment. That an innocent individual can be executed is disturbing. That the death penalty—which has claimed about 50 lives in the United States so far this year—is used for political purposes, while doing nothing to deter violent crime, is abhorrent.
And:
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said in 2006 that he didn’t believe the United States had executed anyone who was innocent. If that had happened, Scalia said, “we would not have to hunt for it; the innocent’s name would be shouted from the rooftops.”
Had Willingham been sentenced to life in prison, he could be a free man today.
Instead we are left to ask, as former Texas Governor Mark White recently did: Why do we impose the death penalty, given the possibility that an innocent person will be executed?
Earlier coverage of the Todd Willingham case begins with this post. All coverage is also available through the Todd Willingham category index.
The Beyler report prepared for the Forensic Science Commission is here in Adobe .pdf format. David Grann's New Yorker article is noted here. The Innocence Project's Todd Willingham resource page provides a concise overview of the Willingham case with links to all relevant documents. Steve Mills and Maurice Possley first reported on the case in a 2004 Chicago Tribune series on junk science. The December 9, 2004 report was titled,"Man executed on disproved forensics."
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