Executing Innocent People In Texas

Executing Innocent People In Texas
Tue 1 Sep 2009, 18:01 0 Comment(s)
My dear readers, yesterday I showed you quite an interesting story about a man who,most likely, was wrongly executed in Texas. This is not the first case of a man being wrongly executed in Texas. The Houston Chronicle exposed another case of a man from 1994 who, most likely, was wrongfully executed.

I lived in Australia for five years. I was there from 1981 to 1986. When I got there I saw people getting the death penalty but no executions being carried out. I soon found out why. In the early 1960's, an inmate at Pentridge Prison in Melbourne somehow got a pistol smuggled in to him. He made an effort to escape by taking a prison warder hostage. He got into a shooting battle with prison warders. Sadly one warder was shot and killed. This inmate was captured and rapidly taken to trial in Melbourne. He was found guilty of willful murder. The justice in the Supreme Court put the black hood over his judicial wig as he sentenced the man to death by hanging. Unlike America where executions often take up to 20 years to carry out, this man was hung after one appeal.

One crusading newspaper reporter did not like the whole thing. He kept digging and digging. He was able to convince courts to order a ballistic test of the bullet that actually killed the prison warder. Much to the surprise of everyone, the bullet had come from another prison warder's gun. The gun was traced back to another prison warder who claimed a bullet might have ricchoched. (On the other hand the warder he shot might have been an old enemy and he was using the confusion of the escape as an opportunity to "settle old scores.")

In American states like California, the bullet that killed the warder would have made no difference. The mere fact that the inmate was escaping and the warder died would have been enough grounds for a first-degree murder charge and the death penalty. Such is not the case in the British system. (As a matter of interest, in 1988 I was a counselor in a drug and alcohol treatment center in Los Angeles. One of my clients was a man who had spent 7 years on death row in Louisiana for killing an employee during an armed robbery. A crusading newspaper reporter found the bullet that had killed the employee. The ballistics test proved it came form the gun of the store security guard. The condemned inmate was freed.)

When the Australian public read this story, they were enraged to see that the State of Victoria had made a rush to judgment and had hung an innocent man. Australians are a rough and crude people. But this was too much for their sensibilities. The public rage led to a moratorium on executions that lasted for almost 30 years until Australia formally abolished capital punishment.

The people in what I call "The Texas Death Penalty Industrial Complex" know that if the public ever finds out that innocent people have been executed, Texas will suffer worldwide humiliation. Even tough and right-wing Texans will become enraged. A public outcry will arise for the abolition of the death penalty. Many people including prosecutors, prison employees, and others who earn their living from executions will find their jobs at risk. The people in power in Texas will find that they will have big problems getting reelected due to their perceived incompetence and indifference as innocent people were excuted.

You will also see a rash of civil suits from the families of the inmates wrongfully executed. This could cost the State of Texas literally hundreds of millions of dollars as Texas civil juries are famous for awarding huge amounts of money in cases.

You're going to see lies, cover-ups, and intimidation to keep this all "under cover." Unless you have some very courageous and dedicated people fighting for justice, the whole thing will just "die on the vine."

There is one courageous man in Texas who fights for the wrongfully convicted. He is a black man who just happens to be District Attorney of Dallas County, Texas. The Discovery Channel did a special series of programs on him. He has used DNA evidence to free many prisoners wrongfully convicted. Some of these prisoners were freed after serving over 20 years in prison. On television he wondered openly how many innocent people had been executed in Texas.

There is a moral here for South Africa. Many horrible crimes happen in your country. Many people get enraged over the senseless violence. Many call for a return to the death penalty. You can see the results above. You have huge increases in legal and prison costs. The possibility of innocent people being executed comes into play. This will lead to lies, cover ups, and a loss of confidence in the political system.

Topics: executing innocent people