I said yesterday here that I didn't think the momentum in this country would turn against the Death Penalty until there was some really strong evidence that some state executed an innocent white guy with no criminal record. Several folks wrote in to say that's already happened. There are several instances that organizations like Project Innocence say would qualify, most recently the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham in Texas.
It sure sounds like Willingham was innocent but it's not generating any outrage among those whose minds need to be changed. For one thing, Willingham had a criminal record…a minor one to be sure but there's a strong sense out there that if you get arrested, you've got to be guilty of something. It may not be precisely what you're arrested for but a lot of folks just divide the world into Good Guys and Bad Guys — often via some very odd indicators — and that's it. Any time the state can eliminate one of them Bad Guys, they love it. So what if he got convicted of Crime A when he actually committed Crime B?
Also in Willingham's case, a key element is missing that might cause some people to decide his execution was a shame. In his case, it wasn't a question that maybe the wrong guy was convicted of a crime. It's that a lot of scientists now feel that no crime was committed by anyone; that it was all a dreadful accident. A strong argument against executing the wrong guy is that when you do, the actual perpetrator goes free. In fact, he not only goes free but the law now has a powerful incentive not to investigate or admit that. Some states go to great lengths to make sure there's never an investigation that proves they gave the lethal injection to the wrong guy. In Willingham's matter, a "real killer" is not lurking about.
What I think Death Penalty opponents should do is to lobby for laws that say that after an execution, the case stays open and there's a way someone could prove an innocent person got the chair. Set up some sort of independent panel that would get access to every scrap of evidence and which could subpoena folks in order to follow up post-execution appeals. I wonder how eager Rick Perry would be to fry someone on Death Row if there was the possibility that a body with some authority could later determine that an innocent person was wrongfully put to death. Any governor who believes "the system always works" should have no problem with that.