[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----USA

[Rick Halperin]

May 26



USA:

More fears about executing the innocent

Defense attorneys worry bad evidence, witnesses send men to chambers

Nobody has produced irrefutable proof that any innocent man was executed

Former prosecutor: Death penalty for a "greatly cruel, sadistic-type
crime"

Since 1973, 129 people have walked off death rows based on evidence


A call from death row inmate Terry Lyn Short interrupted a meeting in the
office of his attorney, James Rowan.

Short wanted a promise that, after he is put to death next month, he won't
end up in a pauper's grave in the cemetery that contains the bodies of
many of those hanged, electrocuted and lethally injected at the
100-year-old Oklahoma State Penitentiary.

Rowan told his 47-year-old client not to be concerned about that. "It's
not going to cost you anything, so don't worry about it. That's the least
of your worries," he said.

What worries Rowan and other defense attorneys is the possibility that an
innocent man could be executed now that the nation's death-row machine is
gearing up again following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that upheld the
constitutionality of lethal injection.

They point to past death sentences of men who were later exonerated,
blaming ineffective lawyers, overzealous prosecutors and shoddy evidence.

"The answer is yes, it could happen," said Rowan, who has defended more
than 40 capital cases.

Since 1973, 129 people have walked off death rows in 26 states after
evidence proved they were wrongfully convicted, according to the Death
Penalty Information Center.

Florida leads all states with 22 exonerations, followed by 18 in Illinois.
Oklahoma is 1 of 5 states that have each freed eight inmates from death
row. One of the Oklahoma men, Ron Williamson, spent 9 years on death row
and came within 5 days of execution before he was set free by DNA
evidence. The case formed the basis of John Grisham's best-selling "The
Innocent Man."

Oklahoma's executioners have administered lethal injections to 86 people
since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, trailing only Texas with
405 and Virginia with 98.

Nobody has ever been able to produce irrefutable proof that any innocent
man was executed in recent U.S. history, but Oklahoma's execution of
Malcolm Rent Johnson has troubled many death penalty opponents. He went to
his execution proclaiming his innocence.

A star prosecution witness against Johnson, convicted of the 1981 rape and
strangulation of an elderly woman, was police chemist Joyce Gilchrist, who
was later fired amid allegations of shoddy forensic work and misleading
testimony.

"There were serious questions about his case," said Vicki Werneke, chief
of the capital post-conviction division of the Oklahoma Indigent Defense
System. "There was a lot of circumstantial evidence in that case, but he
was executed in 2000, right before the whole issue with Joyce Gilchrist
came to light."

Attempts to contact Gilchrist for comment were unsuccessful; there is no
listed telephone number for her in Oklahoma City.

A current case that has raised questions is that of Paris Lapriest Powell,
convicted in the 1993 shooting death of a 14-year-old in a gang-related,
drive-by shooting in Oklahoma City.

Powell, then 19, and a co-defendant were convicted and sentenced to death
based largely on the testimony of prosecution witness Derick Smith, a
convicted drug dealer who has since recanted his testimony and said he
lied.

A federal judge has ordered a new trial for Powell, now 34. The state has
appealed the judge's ruling.

Powell, one of 83 condemned inmates in the "H-unit" of the state
penitentiary, has always maintained his innocence.

"I've never really sat back and contemplated my last meal or anything like
that. I've refused to accept that," Powell said in a recent interview with
The Associated Press.

He describes a sense of community on Oklahoma's death row, where inmates
share a common goal of avoiding the nearby death chamber.

"You can't help but to think about it. You always know that it's there,"
Powell said.

"I don't prefer death at all, but if I have to die ... I'd choose old
age."

Both Powell and Johnson were prosecuted by the office of Bob Macy,
Oklahoma County's chief prosecutor for more than 2 decades.

Macy, now 78 and retired, oversaw an office that sent to death row 34 of
the 86 inmates who have been executed in Oklahoma since executions resumed
in 1990.

While Macy acknowledges that forensic science has advanced greatly in
recent years and that appellate courts sometimes criticized his arguments,
he said he never sought the death penalty unless he was convinced a
defendant was guilty.

"I have always believed the death penalty is a deterrent, and it's one
reason I sought the death penalty as often as I did," he said.

"We tried at least 60 capital murder cases, and I think we got the death
penalty in 54 of them," he said in a telephone interview. "The only time
you get the death penalty is when you have greatly cruel, sadistic-type
crime."

(source: CNN)