Let's begin with two news items, before turning to commentary on the SBI lab scandal and what it means for capital punishment in North Carolina.
The AP brief is, "Moratorium supported for cases tainted by SBI crime lab," via the Charlotte Observer.
The president of a district attorneys' group in North Carolina says he supports a moratorium on the execution of any death-row prisoners whose cases include evidence from the State Bureau of Investigations crime lab.
The News & Observer of Raleigh reported that Seth Edwards says he still has faith in the state's judicial system but he knows others might have doubts after a scathing review of the state-run crime lab.
The Charlotte Observer also has, "Call for a halt rises," written by Michael Hewlett.
With questions continuing to surface about the SBI crime lab's credibility, local defense attorneys say that there should be a moratorium on executions in North Carolina.
"The criminal-justice system can fix all errors as they discover them, except for one -- when someone has been executed," said David Freedman, a criminal-defense attorney in Winston-Salem. "These are not fanciful doubts. The more people dig, they more they find out."
Over the past few weeks, the State Bureau of Investigation's crime lab has come under intensive scrutiny, first from a series of articles in the Raleigh News & Observer and then from a government-ordered audit done by two former FBI officials. The audit said that SBI agents helped prosecutors obtain convictions over a 16-year period, mostly by misrepresenting blood evidence and keeping critical notes from defense attorneys. The officials found 190 cases that should be examined.
Yesterday, Seth Edwards, the president of the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys, said that the four death-row cases included in the audit should get further scrutiny, but added that no other death-row cases should be reviewed.
He has also called for a comprehensive audit of the crime lab.
Today's News & Observer carries the editorial, "Death on hold."
With the credibility of the State Bureau of Investigation's crime lab in serious doubt, an unusual call for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty comes from Seth Edwards of Washington, current president of the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys. His words should be heeded.
That Edwards would cite the problems with the SBI lab (revealed in a News & Observer series and in an audit of cases involving blood analysis done for Attorney General Roy Cooper) as a reason not to execute, for now, any death-row inmates who were up against SBI evidence in their trials should be a statement of the obvious. But at least he said it.
There are other problems as well, with some minority prisoners protesting sentences they say were influenced by racial bias. And indeed, statistics showing that blacks have been disproportionately excluded from juries in capital cases and that a substantial percentage of death-row inmates were tried by all- or mostly white juries do raise questions.
And:
Trying to proceed with the ultimate end to the judicial process in such cases would be like trying to fly a kite in a hurricane.
"The last man to die," is the Greensboro Record-News editorial.
The last person executed in North Carolina was Samuel Flippen, put to death Aug. 18, 2006, for the murder of his 2-year-old stepdaughter.
It's possible Flippen forever will remain the last person executed in North Carolina. The state should make sure of that.
Capital punishment is on its last legs here. The only question is whether a handful of condemned prisoners will follow Flippen before the end or whether the practice officially will be brought to a halt.
A trend away from death sentences has been apparent for years. In 1999, 25 prisoners were placed on death row. Sixteen were added in 2000. The numbers have dropped to just two in 2009 and two more so far this year. Juries and even prosecutors by and large prefer sentences of life without parole.
That's not a soft-on-crime penalty. Locking someone up for the rest of his natural life -- often 50 years or more -- not only protects the public, it allows for errors to be discovered and corrected. Execution does not.
Many mistakes have been exposed lately. Not only have innocent men been released from prison when new evidence has surfaced, but recent reports reveal that shoddy and dishonest work was turned out for years by the State Bureau of Investigation's crime lab. In some cases, false evidence led to wrongful convictions -- and possibly executions. On Monday, the president of the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys conceded that executions in affected cases should stop pending further reviews of evidence.
A moratorium has been in effect anyway, for reasons that include opposition by the North Carolina Medical Society to lethal-injection protocols.
Another concern is inconsistency. Some death-row inmates are there for crimes less heinous than those committed by people who were given life sentences.
And:
Gov. Bev Perdue should stop further executions and, when it returns to Raleigh next year, the General Assembly should do away with an outdated death penalty.
Leave Samuel Flippen with his dubious distinction.
Charlotte Observer columnist Mark Washburn's latest is, "If it takes cheating, it's not justice."
You don't want me on your jury.
I should probably know better, but deep in my noodle is the belief that if the cops pick you up, the grand jury indicts you, the prosecutor builds a case and you wind up in court, you were probably up to something.
Introduce some scientist with a bulging forehead to testify that - after parsing evidence with magnifier and isotope - you were definitely up to something, and I'm about ready to vote.
Morons like me fill jury boxes across the land, and we're experts on crime. We watch forensic whodunits, common as car commercials on TV.
We know there is no higher calling than crime-scene analyst, those heroic - and occasionally buxom - nerds who can coax a blueprint for murder from a single strand of hair.
We know how they can drop a fingernail in an infallible machine and then, chonka-chonka-chonka, out spews an instant report pointing the finger at an unlikely suspect, who winds up in handcuffs and ultimately before the jury.
That's why this scandal in the state crime lab is a good thing.
It reminds us that there can be crooks on both sides of the law.
And:
No graver duty does our government perform than taking the liberty of a citizen, and there is no graver injustice than taking it from one who is innocent.
It doesn't matter that it might have been done for the best of intentions - that investigators need a little help from the referee to put away a defendant they are convinced is guilty.
Nor does it matter that it might have been done out of simple sloppiness.
Earlier coverage begins with this post. Thanks to Gerda Stein for forwarding North Carolina coverage.
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