http://news.yahoo.com/wrong-man-executed-texas-probe-says-051125159.html

Quote :

"He was the spitting image of the killer, had the same first name and was near the scene of the crime at the fateful hour: Carlos DeLuna paid the ultimate price and was executed in place of someone else in Texas in 1989, a report out Tuesday found. Even "all the relatives of both Carloses mistook them," and DeLuna was sentenced to death and executed based only on eyewitness accounts despite a range of signs he was not a guilty man, said law professor James Liebman. Liebman and five of his students at Columbia School of Law spent almost five years poring over details of a case that he says is "emblematic" of legal system failure. DeLuna, 27, was put to death after "a very incomplete investigation. No question that the investigation is a failure," Liebman said. The report's authors found "numerous missteps, missed clues and missed opportunities that let authorities prosecute Carlos DeLuna for the crime of murder, despite evidence not only that he did not commit the crime but that another individual, Carlos Hernandez, did," the 780-page investigation found. The report, entitled "Los Tocayos Carlos: Anatomy of a Wrongful Execution," traces the facts surrounding the February 1983 murder of Wanda Lopez, a single mother who was stabbed in the gas station where she worked in a quiet corner of the Texas coastal city of Corpus Christi. "Everything went wrong in this case," Liebman said. That night Lopez called police for help twice to protect her from an individual with a switchblade. "They could have saved her, they said 'we made this arrest immediately' to overcome the embarrassment," Liebman said. Forty minutes after the crime Carlos DeLuna was arrested not far from the gas station. He was identified by only one eyewitness who saw a Hispanic male running from the gas station. But DeLuna had just shaved and was wearing a white dress shirt -- unlike the killer, who an eyewitness said had a mustache and was wearing a grey flannel shirt. Even though witnesses accounts were contradictory -- the killer was seen fleeing towards the north, while DeLuna was caught in the east -- DeLuna was arrested. "I didn't do it, but I know who did," DeLuna said at the time, saying that he saw Carlos Hernandez entering the service station. DeLuna said he ran from police because he was on parole and had been drinking. Hernandez, known for using a blade in his attacks, was later jailed for murdering a woman with the same knife. But in the trial, the lead prosecutor told the jury that Hernandez was nothing but a "phantom" of DeLuna's imagination. DeLuna's budget attorney even said that it was probable that Carlos Hernandez never existed. However in 1986 a local newspaper published a photograph of Hernandez in an article on the DeLuna case, Liebman said. Following hasty trial DeLuna was executed by lethal injection in 1989. Up to the day he died in prison of cirrhosis of the liver, Hernandez repeatedly admitted to murdering Wanda Lopez, Liebman said. "Unfortunately, the flaws in the system that wrongfully convicted and executed DeLuna -- faulty eyewitness testimony, shoddy legal representation and prosecutorial misconduct -- continue to send innocent men to their death today," read a statement that accompanies the report."

Still support capital punishment?

5/15/2012 5:56:53 PM

Yes.


I don't support "faulty eyewitness testimony, shoddy legal representation and prosecutorial misconduct"

and they should be killed for their failure.

5/15/2012 6:51:05 PM

Yes, but only in very, very, very rare circumstances. I think unless there is absolutely incontrovertible proof through something like video of a murder, ballistic evidence with fingerprint/dna support, or something equally damning it should be off the table.

This shit happens way too often, and the more DNA testing is done the more often you find convictions being overturned. It's bad enough that there are people who have lost years of there life for a crime they didn't commit. When someone is executed for a crime they didn't commit our system has failed.

Absolute prosecutorial immunity needs to go, and prosecutorial misconduct needs to be punished with heavy, heavy sentences.

5/15/2012 7:51:50 PM

Capital Punishment is nothing more than a modern day witch hunt.

5/15/2012 8:00:42 PM

It's like a really late term abortion, where society instead of the mother makes the decision to abort.

5/15/2012 8:50:46 PM

No, it's more like a sacrifice into order to perpetuate the illusion of safety

5/15/2012 9:32:28 PM

no it's more like a deterrent to serious crime

5/16/2012 8:02:11 AM

As much as I wish that were true the evidence doesn't support it. If it did then death penalty states would have lower capital crimes committed than those without, but they don't. Just the opposite in fact, states without the death penalty have substantially lower murder rates.

The idea of a deterrent effect just doesn't pass muster.

5/16/2012 8:17:40 AM

Deterrence doesn't pass muster only because of the way we implement it.

That being said, I'm no longer in favor methodologically of Capital Punishment. Philosophically yes. Crimes against humanity deserve death. We're just so painfully incompetent at implementing it that it isn't worth it. If we seriously reform and overhaul society and our justice system it might work but on Earth 2012 it's a losing proposition.

5/16/2012 8:31:36 AM

^^ Cause and effect. Maybe they have more stringent punishments because crime is more of a problem.

5/16/2012 8:58:27 AM

Or maybe both Capital punishment and the human conditions that lead to increased poverty and crime are both the result of draconian cavemen running their governments.

5/16/2012 9:36:12 AM

^^But if there was a deterrent effect you would expect to see a drop in violent crime at a higher rate than in non-capital punishment states, right?

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/deterrence-states-without-death-penalty-have-had-consistently-lower-murder-rates#stateswithvwithout

I mean, you would be hard pressed to convince me that Connecticut is a more dangerous place than Massachusetts, but Massachusetts, which does not have the death penalty has a lower murder ran than Connecticut, which does.

5/16/2012 10:46:32 AM

I would support the death penalty if our court system weren't as fucked up as it is. Since I cannot possibly trust the results of criminal trials, I can't condone putting someone to death. I support the death penalty in concept, but with all the corruption by our police, prosecutors and judges, I can't support the practice.

5/16/2012 10:54:17 AM

Yup. Philosophically I support the idea, but I don't trust our court systems or juries.

For the record, if I'm ever on trial I'd be very tempted to select a judge trial over a jury. Juries are full of fucking retards.

5/16/2012 10:58:01 AM

Quote :

"I support the death penalty in concept, but with all the corruption by our police, prosecutors and judges, I can't support the practice."

5/16/2012 10:58:46 AM

I don't know how good of an idea this is, but I think for capital punishment, the following should happen:

1) Guilty with no doubt crime was committed = Execution allowed
2) Guilty beyond a reasonable doubt = Execution not allowed

5/16/2012 11:07:46 AM

Yep, and its not used often enough.

5/16/2012 12:11:27 PM

Quote :

"no it's more like a deterrent to serious crime"

right. that's why serous crime never occured during biblical times and why serious crime in states and countries that practice it continues to decrease rapidly. and why most of the countries that don't practice capital punishment have so much serious crime.

[Edited on May 16, 2012 at 1:05 PM. Reason : ]

5/16/2012 1:01:05 PM

Quote :

"I don't know how good of an idea this is, but I think for capital punishment, the following should happen: 1) Guilty with no doubt crime was committed = Execution allowed 2) Guilty beyond a reasonable doubt = Execution not allowed"

Really there should be no difference between 1 and 2, and it's a sad commentary on the state of our criminal justice system that people think there is a difference. If you are confident enough that a crime was committed and the person charged is guilty of that crime, then you should be confident enough to condemn them to death if that is a valid punishment. Conversely, if you aren't confident enough to send a man to his death, then you aren't confident enough to convict him for life either.

[Edited on May 16, 2012 at 1:14 PM. Reason : Oh sure, edit your post on me]

5/16/2012 1:10:53 PM

Quote :

"Absolute prosecutorial immunity needs to go, and prosecutorial misconduct needs to be punished with heavy, heavy sentences."

5/16/2012 4:38:36 PM

there are plenty of studies showing that capital punishment is not a deterrent to others. That said, it is a deterrent to the guy being executed. As others have stated, the way its implemented in this country is too expensive, and too prone to error, and as such I am against it.

5/16/2012 7:25:19 PM