I am following with some fascination two related stories. In each case, a man was convicted for murder and later shown to be innocent. In one case, the wrongly-convicted man was finally freed after 30 years in a cell that from its description sounds like the place you'd place a prisoner of war if there was a drought that prevented you from waterboarding him and you had to make him crack without it. He was the more fortunate of the two men. The other one was executed.
It used to be that people in favor of the Death Penalty got hysterical calling you a liar if you suggested that the U.S. Justice System had ever executed an innocent person. These days, after so many exonerations due to DNA testing, I don't hear that asserted much. Instead, the argument has devolved to something like, "The occasional wrongful execution is just a price we pay for the system that serves us so well."
I think it's arguable that a system that kills the wrong person is serving us well. For one thing, it means the guilty go free. You know what the Perfect Crime is? Moe kills Larry and then Curly is convicted and executed for the crime. Not only does Moe get away with it but the authorities will deny, deny, deny that they killed the wrong guy and will do everything they can to prevent Moe from being investigated or prosecuted.
And of course, killing an innocent person is wrong for other, rather obvious reasons.
Here are the two stories. In 1984, a man named Glenn Ford (no, not that Glenn Ford) was convicted of killing a jeweler. Ford was the lucky one of the innocent men in these two stories who were found guilty. He was released after 30 years.
This happened in Louisiana and there are laws in that state to compensate the victims of wrongful conviction. The state is fighting his payoff and recently, the lead prosecutor in Ford's case — the guy who sent him to Death Row — wrote a powerful apology in support of Ford being compensated. Read the above linked article if you can but be sure to read the prosecutor's apology.
It's a remarkable letter. This world would be a far, far better place if everyone who does something wrong was capable of writing a letter like that.
Here's the other story. It took place in Texas and it's about Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004. He'd been convicted of setting fire to his house to kill his three young daughters who were trapped inside. The "science" that proved at the time he did that has been pretty thoroughly debunked and other exculpatory evidence — hidden back then by prosecutors — has emerged. Which of course doesn't do Mr. Willingham a lot of good now.
You may be hearing a lot about this case in the unlikely event that Texas governor Rick Perry becomes a possible candidate for the Republican presidential ticket. Just before that execution, Perry was presented with evidence that, depending on whom you believe, either proved Willingham's innocence or raised substantial doubts. Either way, Perry declined to halt the execution and while that might never cost him an election in Texas, it might matter elsewhere.
The prosecutor in that case is currently under investigation. It is charged that he won the case by coercing witnesses to lie and by hiding that exculpatory evidence. He may well be found guilty but the punishment is not likely to fit the crime.
There have been other stories like these two lately…too many of them. It makes you wonder how many innocent people are in our prisons…and remain there because they cannot get their cases reopened.