Maurice Possley, Winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize To Speak at Vanguard Event
In November, California voters will be asked to decide whether to keep the death penalty in place or convert the sentences to life without parole. Proponents of the effort to repeal the state’s death penalty point to the fact that the state has only executed 13 people since the death penalty was reinstated at a cost of $184 million per year, according to a recent study.
“California voters are ready to replace the death penalty with life in prison with no chance of parole,” said Jeanne Woodford, spokesperson for the SAFE California campaign (aimed at ending the death penalty in California and converting the sentences to life without parole) and former warden at San Quentin. Ms. Woodford, who oversaw four executions, is one of the speakers at the Vanguard event. “Those of us in law enforcement know that the best way to prevent crime is to solve it. Replacing the death penalty with a punishment of life in prison without parole will free up funds for critical tools like DNA testing in the shocking 46% of murder and 56% of reported rape cases that remain unsolved in our state every year.”
One of the central questions that vexes our system of justice is the possibility of putting an innocent person to death.
Keynote Speaker Maurice Possley, a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter with the Chicago Tribune, has uncovered not one, but two executions of people who did not commit the crimes they were accused of committing.
In 2004, it was Possley’s work with the Chicago Tribune, with co-writer Steve Mills, that first reported on the now-notorious case of Cameron Todd Willingham, executed in 2004 despite strong evidence at that time that no crime ever occurred.
The story of Mr. Willingham gained national attention, first with a New Yorker article and then with the Frontline episode, “Death by Fire.”
Reported Mr. Possley in 2004, “A Tribune investigation of his case shows that Willingham was prosecuted and convicted based primarily on arson theories that have since been repudiated by scientific advances. According to four fire experts consulted by the Tribune, the original investigation was flawed and it is even possible the fire was accidental.”
More remarkably, prior to Mr. Willingham’s February 17 execution, “Texas judges and Gov. Rick Perry turned aside a report from a prominent fire scientist questioning the conviction.”
That author, Gerald Hurst, conducted a thorough review, as did three other fire investigators and they all concluded the same thing.
“There’s nothing to suggest to any reasonable arson investigator that this was an arson fire,” Professor Hurst, a Cambridge University-educated chemist told the Tribune. “It was just a fire.”
Another investigator, Lousiana Fire Chief Kendall Ryland, a former fire instructor at Louisiana State University, said that he tried to re-create, in his workshop, the conditions the original fire investigators described.
When he could not, he said it “made me sick to think this guy was executed based on this investigation. … They executed this guy and they’ve just got no idea–at least not scientifically–if he set the fire, or if the fire was even intentionally set.”
Mr. Possley would report on another story involving a wrongful execution in Texas, this time the case of Carlos DeLuna.
The Chicago Tribune published a series of articles on bad forensics and good forensics practiced badly, which included an article that exposed the problems of arson investigations.
When they found the Willingham case, they went down, re-investigated the case and got experts to look at the evidence.
“That got some attention among folks who work on wrongful convictions, particularly in capital cases,” Mr. Possley told the Vanguard.
The Tribune would then learn of the case of Carlos DeLuna, a person who was executed in 1989 for a murder in Corpus Christi, after James Liebman, a professor at Columbia Law School in New York City, contacted the newspaper.
Professor Liebman co-authored studies that found high rates of court reversals due to serious error in capital cases. There he would come across the DeLuna case. He asked a private investigator to go to Corpus Christi and look into DeLuna’s claim during his trial that another man was the real killer.
Mr. Possley told the Atlantic this spring, “I remember that what really got me interested in the case was seeing the crime scene photos with all of the blood and then learning that there was no blood on DeLuna. It just didn’t seem possible that he committed such a crime and was caught so quickly and had no blood on his clothing. That fact was so startling to me.”
He adds, “I really haven’t changed my view of the case from back then. I thought it was a colossal, global failure of every corner of the criminal justice system. The media failed to question the case (not unusual in smaller markets where police and prosecutors are the best sources) as well.”
Mr. Possley is not the only one of the Vanguard‘s speakers concerned about the execution an innocent person.
Franky Carrillo spent 20 years in prison for a murder he did not convict. Reading Professor Liebman’s account of the execution of Carlos DeLuna, “Shook me to my core. It could have been me.”
“I was wrongfully convicted when I was 16 years old and served 20 years in prison before proving my innocence. That mistake took two decades from me, but it took Carlos DeLuna’s life,” he wrote on the Huffington Post site.
He found strong parallels in their backgrounds and stories.
He writes, “We were both victims of mistaken identity. Carlos was identified by a single, uncorroborated witness who saw the suspect at night; my identification came by an error-filled photo line-up. In both of our cases, there was no forensic evidence to back up the witnesses.”
“Also disturbingly familiar was Carlos’ struggle to prove his innocence. Both of us spent every day of our lives after our convictions trying to prove that we were innocent and neither of us could do it alone,” he added. “Proving that I was not a killer took 20 years and a team of dedicated lawyers, professors, and nonprofit organizations. Without them, I would still be in prison today.”
Carrillo was sentenced in 1992 to one life term and 30 years to life in prison after being convicted of one count of first-degree murder and six counts of attempted murder in a fatal drive-by shooting.
Mr. Carrillo had been in prison for nearly 14 years when a Sacramento-based attorney with the California Public Defender’s office, Ellen Eggers, learned of his case and met with Mr. Carrillo in prison in Folsom.
Critical to Mr. Carrillo’s case were six eyewitnesses who testified to seeing him pull the trigger. It was the victim’s son who finally admitted to Ms. Eggers, “He hadn’t seen anything and he had relied entirely on one of the other witnesses because [he] had assured [the son] it was Franky. But we already knew [from the second witness] that the Sheriff’s Department had told [him] who to pick.”
“So it all led back to a corrupt Sheriff’s deputy that made a mistake and thought he had the right guy but he didn’t,” Ms. Eggers told us.
Ms. Eggers convinced the defense team to hire an eyewitness identification expert, Scott Frasier, to do a complete reenactment of the crime. Eventually she convinced the judge to go to the crime scene.
“[The reenactment] established that none of those witnesses could have seen what they claimed to have seen,” she said. This meant it was not merely adult witnesses recanting years later – there was actually evidence to support that recantation.
Still, even armed with all of that exonerating information, had Ms. Eggers not reached out to the DA’s office, she believes Mr. Carrillo would still be in prison today.
Ellen Eggers said had they not been able to engage the DA’s office, they would have only read the petition, and sent the matter to the sheriff’s department to re-contact the witnesses “and see if they’re really recanting.”
“The whole case would have been conducted by the Sheriff’s Department rather than the independent investigation done by the DA’s office,” she said. “The only reason they did what they did is they is we kind of took it out of the normal course of business. The normal course of business would have permitted the fox to guard the henhouse.”
“I think there’s a strong chance that Franky would still be in prison if this had just been allowed to go its normal course,” she said.
In 1978 Don Heller helped write California’s Death Penalty law for Senator Briggs. But now he no longer believes in the law he once crafted.
“When I wrote it, I was absolutely certain beyond any doubt that what I was writing was morally right, was constitutionally sound, and would bring justice to people that deserved to be executed for heinous homicides,” he said. “I’ve gone from certainty to change.”
At the same time, Mr. Heller believes at least one of California’s 13 executed individuals was innocent.
“I believe that Tommy Thompson was innocent of the rape-murder that he was convicted of and sentenced to death,” Mr. Heller said in response to a question from the Vanguard. “Thompson’s case relied almost exclusively on the testimony of an informant, aptly named Mr. Fink.”
“Mr. Fink was a professional informant, he had actually put several people on death row by people confessing to him in jail and it just so happened that Mr. Fink always benefitted from this confession that was made to him,” Mr. Heller continued.
“I think that Tommy Thompson was innocent,” he said. “He was executed under the law I wrote and that has stayed with me since 1998 that I participated in the execution of an innocent man.”
Mr. Heller said, in a Los Angeles Times interview last spring, that the Tommy Thompson execution marked a turning point for him.
“It took the Tommy Thompson execution [in 1998] for me to become very vocal. It was an example of a clear abuse of the death penalty law,” he said.
Jeanne Woodford is almost as unlikely a person to lead the anti-death penalty movement as Don Heller. For years, she served as a warden at San Quentin, overseeing the executions of four individuals.
Even as a warden at San Quentin, she said was never in favor of the death penalty. She told the Vanguard, “I always thought it was time to get rid of the death penalty and my experience in San Quentin just really reiterated my own, personal beliefs.”
“After each execution, I faced the reality that I had not made the world any safer. The death penalty is a failed public policy and I am committed to spending the rest of my career working to end this costly and ineffective practice,” said Ms. Woodford in another interview. “The death penalty fails to serve victims’ families, does not keep the public safer than the alternative of life without the possibility of parole, inflicts unnecessary stress and trauma on prison personnel, and drains taxpayer resources that could be better spent providing crucial services to homicide victims’ families.”
Instead, she argues, “Public safety could have been addressed by giving the sentence of life without the possibility of parole and so it didn’t make victims of family members feel better or feel safer, I’m sure, because this is many years after the crime.”
—David M. Greenwald
[quote]They executed this guy and they’ve just got no idea–at least not scientifically–if he set the fire, or if the fire was even intentionally set.”[/quote]
In other words, it is not clear whether this man was innocent or guilty – meaning he could very well have committed the crime. His wife seems to think he did. See:[url]http://www.dallasnews.com/news/state/headlines/20101006-Ex-wife-says-Cameron-Todd-Willingham-6640.ece[/url]
[quote]AUSTIN, Texas – The ex-wife of the Texas man executed for setting fire to their home and killing their three daughters tearfully reiterated her contention Wednesday that he confessed his guilt to her.
Stacy Kuykendall read a prepared statement to reporters outside the Travis County courthouse. She told reporters that Cameron Todd Willingham set the fire that killed the girls “and watched while their tiny bodies burned.”…
“My ex-husband murdered my daughters, and just before he was executed, he told me he did it,” Kuykendall said.[/quote]
You are citing an eight year old quote in Possleys article. Did he tell her he killed the kids? I don’t know. The best evidence at this point is that it was not arson. Regardless, the real point is that flimsy science was the basis for the execution
There also questions about whether his wife is telling the truth:
link ([url]http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2009/10/did-todd-willingham-confess-or-did.html[/url])
In fact she even told Possleys he didn’t confess.
From the Innocence Project:
[blockquote]• About Willingham’s ex-wife, Stacy Kuykendall, even John Jackson (who prosecuted Willingham and steadfastly believes he was guilty) says: “She’s given very different stories about what happened on this particular day right up to the date of his execution…It’s hard for me to make heads or tails of anything she said or didn’t say.”
• In 2004, Stacy Kuykendall told the Chicago Tribune that he never confessed, and she said the same to The New Yorker in 2009.
• Details in Stacy Kuykendall recent statements contradict what she said in multiple statements to law enforcement authorities, letters to Willingham and attorneys, and under oath at his trial. (For example, she now claims the couple fought the night before the fire, but she clearly said the opposite in various official statements over the years.)
• Stacy Kuykendall visited Willingham shortly before the execution, which is when he supposedly confessed. In fact, on the same day that her brother claimed she had told him Willingham confessed in that meeting, a local media outlet ran an interview with Stacy Kuykendall where she said Willingham maintained his innocence during the meeting (even though she thought he was guilty). Also, Stacy Kuykendall now claims that he confessed in the same conversation that he asked her to help with his clemency bid. [/blockquote]
So you going to believe her statement? I’ll believe the science at this point
[quote]In other words, it is not clear whether this man was innocent or guilty[/quote]
My question is what difference does it make ?
What is clear is that three girls lost their lives and then a man, of questionable guilt lost his.
What purpose was served ?
Who was protected ?
What was deterred ?
Where is the justice ?
Is anyone really going to defend the state executing someone where guilt is not certain just because we can?
To medwoman: The title of the article misleadingly includes the words “wrongful executions” which is not necessarily the case here. It is not clear whether Willingham was guilty or not. IMO the Willingham case is not a good case to use as an example of why we should not have the death penalty. There are plenty of cases that are far clearer and more explicit that a mistake was made…
Disagree Elaine, the title of the article is accurate. It is clear that Willingham was not shown to have committed an arson in this case, because the arson determination was based on demonstrably faulty science. You are arguing a slightly different point as to whether he was factually innocent. I think he is, but I can see how people may differ on this point.
Elaine
I understand the uncertainty. I also understand that it does not address any of my questions. Surely there must be some benefit to someone if we are going to impose this penalty. Unless you are going to site the state not having to pay for his room, board and medical care, I fail to see any benefit in the death of this man. Do you ?
“…execution of a legally and factually innocent person would be a constitutionally intolerable event.”
–Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
Unfortunately, Sandra Day O’Connor is off the court while Thomas, Scalia and Roberts are still on.
[quote]”You are arguing a slightly different point as to whether he was factually innocent.”[/quote]I’d say what Elaine is arguing is what she said:[quote]”…it is not clear whether this man was innocent or guilty – meaning he could very well have committed the crime.”[/quote]There are a couple problems with the term “wrongful executions” in a legal sense. First. a person is judged “guilty” in order to be “rightfully” executed.
Since it’s impossible to retry once the guilty person is executed, there no way to come up with result other than the original, “guilty as charged, ready for rightful execution.”
Second, no amount of subsequent consideration and argument is anything more than just so much talk–unless one has found conclusive evidence that the two parties were in different places (enough different and for so long that the guilty party positively couldn’t have been involved) even on a time-fuse basis. Of course, that kind of evidence would have been located at the beginning.
Some require much more evidence than a jury does (like the [i]Vanguard[/i)]; some require much less (like extreme “law and order” types). This factor is the best predictor of whether any given person will see “wrongful executions” in any given case.
Even the writer of the link you provided to Elaine (“GRITS FOR BREAKFAST”)–who has covered this case extensively–came up with this temporary conclusion:[quote]”Said one of the nine arson experts who have independently concluded the forensic testimony was flawed, ‘I really did get sick to my stomach after I reviewed that case … [u]He could have done it, but he probably didn’t.’ That’s also pretty much my conclusion from everything I’ve seen so far[/u].”[/quote]He also observed:[quote]”That said, if this open records request comes back with a recorded confession, it’d pretty much put an end to the ‘innocence’ debate in this case.”[/quote]But, would his recorded confession to his wife really be enough to satisfy the [i]Vanguard[/i] go his guilt?
Misgivings about expert testimony-even ones as blatant as we have here–aren’t enough to pronounce someone “not guilty,” especially when there’s other, independent evidence used during a trial or found subsequently.
There’s only [u]one[/u] definition of a “wrongful execution.” That is: “any execution in the U.S.”
Not only is killing anyone an act that we shouldn’t approve here (as most advanced countries agree), it should be a crime to apply the practice so unevenly and unfairly. There is no crime so horrendous that official killings can be considered the country’s answer.
Toss in the fact that at least one per innocent person must been killed this way, and attempting to justify executions becomes a worthless exercise. It’s sad that Congress can’t outlaw the practice. Eventually, however, the Supreme Court will.
The last five paragraphs (starting “[i]But, would his recorded confession….[/i]”) appear as a quote, but are not. They’re just my humble opinions.
“But, would his recorded confession to his wife really be enough to satisfy the [i]Vanguard[/i] :[s] go [/s]: of his guilt?”
JustSaying: If you don’t have an arson, you don’t have a crime here. A confession would obviously change the parameters here. But I don’t know by how much, because I’m not sure how much Willingham was in his right mind.
Nevertheless, it is clear that Mrs. Willingham’s accounts are all over the place and change over time.
The other independent evidence is unconvincing. We think we know how people are going to respond to tragedy, but that doesn’t mean that people act according to our expectations.
Bottom line for me is that an execution when there is scientific evidence questioning the cause of a fire is wrongful.
[quote]Bottom line for me is that an execution when there is scientific evidence questioning the cause of a fire is wrongful.[/quote]
I would argue that we don’t know if Willingham’s execution was wrongful. It is only wrongful if he didn’t commit the crime…
[quote]medwoman: Elaine I understand the uncertainty. I also understand that it does not address any of my questions. Surely there must be some benefit to someone if we are going to impose this penalty. Unless you are going to site the state not having to pay for his room, board and medical care, I fail to see any benefit in the death of this man. Do you ?[/quote]
Ultimately, I don’t think anyone benefits from the death penalty. Our criminal justice system is too fraught with error to take the chance of executing an innocent person. It is bad enough when an innocent person is wrongly incarcerated – and some would liken that to the death penalty or a living death as it were. But at least if an error is made there is some chance to undo the damage if the wrongly accused is still alive and in prison. For me personally, I just feel our justice system is too imperfect to chance the ultimate punishment of death that could be a horrendous mistake.
“I would argue that we don’t know if Willingham’s execution was wrongful. It is only wrongful if he didn’t commit the crime…”
I completely 1000% disagree with you. It’s wrongful if there is any doubt whatsoever that he did.
[quote]”If you don’t have an arson, you don’t have a crime here.”[/quote]I agree that if he didn’t do it, then he didn’t do it. However, the jury had much more to consider than just the poor forensics presentation. In addition, the subsequent studies didn’t come up with evidence excluding arson or identifying the fire’s source.[quote]”I completely 1000% disagree with you. It’s wrongful if there is any doubt whatsoever that he did.”[/quote]”Any doubt whatsoever in [u]anyone’s mind[/u] is not our standard. Jury members are the only ones who are granted such power in our system. [quote]”Nevertheless, it is clear that Mrs. Willingham’s accounts are all over the place and change over time.”[/quote]Nevertheless, it is clear that Mr. Willingham’s accounts are all over the place and change over time. No doubt, jurors gave some weight to this.[quote]”Bottom line for me is that an execution when there is scientific evidence questioning the cause of a fire is wrongful.”[/quote]Scientific evidence questioning the state’s scientific evidence is commonplace in trials, and jurors have to decide how to weigh each along with all of the other evidence presented by prosecution and defense.
It’s not easy to prove a negative, but it’s even a more hopeless exercise to attempt to prove Willingham’s innocence without the court’s participation.
Willingham no longer has his right to a presumption of innocence. It doesn’t get restored because one part of the case that proved his guilt is faulty.
The good thing is that this case exposed poor science in a way that will exclude it in future trials, just as dunking no longer is accepted as proof of guilt.
But, retying Willingham is futile. Outlawing executions (whether by organized crime or organized government) is a worthy and attainable enterprise, however.
“However, the jury had much more to consider than just the poor forensics presentation.”
At the same time, the jury never would have convicted is 9 experts got up there saying there was no evidence of arson and in fact their best evidence is that the fire was accidental due to faulty wiring.
Except, of course, we have no idea whatsoever what a jury would do with different cases presented by the two sides. We also can’t be sure what the experts would say under oath and in cross examination.
We’re aware that some experts (those involved in the real investigation) still argue there’s plenty of proof of arson with other evidence, all bolstered by Willingham’s lies about what else happened during the fire.
We don’t know what additional evidence the prosecutor would have to contribute in this imaginary retrial.[quote]”Said one of the nine arson experts who have independently concluded the forensic testimony was flawed, ‘I really did get sick to my stomach after I reviewed that case … He could have done it, but he probably didn’t.’ That’s also pretty much my conclusion from everything I’ve seen so far….
That said, if this open records request comes back with a recorded confession, it’d pretty much put an end to the ‘innocence’ debate in this case’.”[/quote]We just don’t know–we cannot ever know–whether Willingham was as guilty as the jury decided he was. Elaine is correct. I rest my case.
[quote]I completely 1000% disagree with you. It’s wrongful if there is any doubt whatsoever that he did.[/quote]
“any doubt whatsoever” is not the standard of proof. It has to be proof [i][b]beyond a reasonable doubt[/b][/i]. As JustSaying has pointed out, we cannot know how the jury would have reacted to the new evidence introduced by forensic scientists, or how those forensic scientists would have held up under cross examination. Nor do we know what other evidence was available during trial that might have swayed the jury. Remember, the burden of proof is now on Willingham’s side to show that given the new evidence, that it was reversible error…
Here’s the problem with your argument at this point Elaine. If the fire is accidental then there is no arson. No arson, no murder. That’s a big enough change in circumstance to warrant a new trial. So at that point, they have to prove he is guilty with 9 fire experts saying it was an accidental fire and that the original investigation was flawed.