chaiklin@umn-cs.UUCP (Seth Chaiklin) (10/30/85)
<827@umn-cs.UUCP>
Organization: Computer Science Dept, U of Minnesota
Xref: burl net.flame:7095 net.politics:7555
Summary: Evidence for actual (or almost) capital punishment of innocent people
> From: (goodrum@unc.UUCP) Cloyd Goodrum III asks:
[Who was executed in the United States after
trial by jury, even though innocent?]
<What follows is some information that bears on the question.
I have not been able to track down as much specific documentation as
is required by netiquette, though I believe it is available.
Unfortunately, I am moving next week and cannot devote more time
to this project right now. So, I will give what I have so far,
and if I can get a net connection in New York City, I will provide more.>
In conversations with people here, I have been told that Maine,
Wisconsin, and Rhode Island all abolished their death penalties
after it was discovered that innocent people were executed.
Also, there was a recent case in Florida where the executed man
had a good abili--his employer claimed that the man was at work 300
miles away at the time of the crime--but the police suppressed
this evidence in the trial. The Minnesota Civil Liberties Union just
moved their office and their material is still in boxes, so I
cannot cite specific sources. However, Henry Schwarzchild, who is
the Director of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Prison
Project (Tel: 212-944-9800) is supposed to be able to provide this
information readily. Perhaps a netter in New York City would be
willing to call and post the results to the net?
Two books discuss a number of cases in which people were sentenced
to death, but were subsequently released (sometimes after several
years had passed) when it was discovered that they were innocent.
The references are:
Bedau, Hugo (Ed.) (1982). The death penalty in America (3rd ed.).
New York: Oxford University Press.
Black, Charles L. (1981). Capital punishment (2nd ed.).
New York: Norton.
Finally, here something from Amnesty International:
"Since 1900 in the United States an average of one convicted
murderer per year was later found innocent. [Also cited in
"Surprising Facts About The Death Penalty," available from
Institute for Southern Studies, PO Box 531, Durham, NC 27702 --SC]
The actual number who have been unjustly executed can never be known.
Freddie Pitts and Wilbert Lee were lucky, but not before they had
spent 12 years in jail, most of them under sentence of death, for
the murder of two white gas station attendants in Florida. The two
black men were accused of committing the murders, but later the key
witness against them withdrew her testimony and another man confessed
to the crime. In 1975 the two innocent men were released. They would
have been dead already if their appeals had not by chance run out
during a temporary, court-imposed moratorium on executions.
Timothy Evans was not as lucky. The British people's shock at
discovering that this innocent man had been executed was a major
reason for the abolition of capital punishment in Great Britain."
Excerpted from: "The Death Penalty: Cruel & Inhuman Punishment"
Amnesty International USA, 322 Eighth Ave, NY,
NY 10001
Seth Chaiklin
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