Wrong man was executed in Texas, probe says

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Agence France-Presse

Wrong man was executed in Texas, probe says
AFP
15 مايو, 2012 10:01:44 ص Oman Time

Texas: He was the spitting image of the killer, had the same first name and was near the scene of the crime at the fateful hour: Carlos DeLuna paid the ultimate price and was executed in place of someone else in Texas in 1989, a report out Tuesday found.

Even "all the relatives of both Carloses mistook them," and DeLuna was sentenced to death and executed based only on eyewitness accounts despite a range of signs he was not a guilty man, said law professor James Liebman.

Liebman and five of his students at Columbia School of Law spent almost five years poring over details of a case that he says is "emblematic" of legal system failure.

DeLuna, 27, was put to death after "a very incomplete investigation. No question that the investigation is a failure," Liebman said.


Read more: http://www.timesofoman.com/innercat.asp?detail=4969

[Judi Lynn]

1. Carlos De Luna Execution: Texas Put To Death An Innocent Man, Columbia University Team Says

Carlos De Luna Execution: Texas Put To Death An Innocent Man, Columbia University Team Says
Posted: 05/15/2012 12:00 am

One of the strongest arguments against the death penalty is the frightening chance of executing an innocent person. Columbia University law professor James Liebman said he and a team of students have proven that Texas gave a lethal injection to the wrong man.

Carlos De Luna was executed in 1989 for stabbing to death a gas station clerk in Corpus Christi six years earlier. It was a ghastly crime. The trial attracted local attention, but not from concern that a guiltless man would be punished while the killer went free.

De Luna, an eighth grade dropout, maintained that he was innocent from the moment cops put him in the back seat of a patrol car until the day he died. Today, 29 years after De Luna was arrested, Liebman and his team published a mammoth report in the Human Rights Law Review that concludes De Luna paid with his life for a crime he likely did not commit. Shoddy police work, the prosecution's failure to pursue another suspect, and a weak defense combined to send De Luna to death row, they argued.

"I would say that across the board, there was nonchalance," Liebman told The Huffington Post. "It looked like a common case, but we found that there was a very serious claim of innocence."

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/15/carlos-de-luna-execution-_n_1507003.html

[arenean]

14. Here's the story in The Guardian (UK)

The story also appears in todays Guardian (UK).....


The wrong Carlos: how Texas sent an innocent man to his death

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/15/carlos-texas-innocent-man-death

[Judi Lynn]

2. Another innocent executed?

Monday, May 14, 2012 10:01 PM CDT
Another innocent executed?

The state of Texas killed Carlos DeLuna for a crime he appears not to have committed, according to a new report
By Rania Khalek

Death-penalty abolitionists long believed that the execution of an innocent person would turn the public against capital punishment. But that conviction has recently been shaken. First, there was Cameron Todd Willingham, who, after his 2004 execution in Texas, was found to have been likely innocent of killing his three small daughters. Nearly a decade later, Georgia executed Troy Davis despite widespread doubts about his guilt.

A new investigative report by the Columbia Human Rights Law Review (CHRLR) reveals that Carlos DeLuna, who was executed by the state of Texas in 1989, was likely innocent as well. The full report, titled “Los Tocayos Carlos: An Anatomy of a Wrongful Execution,” can be viewed at CHRLR’s newly launched interactive website where readers can view all of the evidence cited in the article.

DeLuna, a poor Latino man described as having the intelligence of a child, was convicted of murdering Wanda Lopez, a 24-year-old single mother who was stabbed to death with a folding knife in 1983 while working behind the cash register at a gas station in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Lopez called 911 when her killer entered the store leaving behind a 911 recording of the encounter. She is heard answering a series of yes or no questions asked by the dispatcher about the creepy customer with the knife in his pocket and then whispering that he’s “standing right here at the counter” and “can’t talk,” followed by “Okay. This? Eighty-five,” in response to the customer. After more questions from the dispatcher, Lopez is heard pleading for her life and the line cuts off.

More:
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/15/another_innocent_executed/singleton/

[nofurylike]

3. beyond ... unbearable.

shriek.




thank you for informing us of this, Judi Lyn.

[limpyhobbler]

4. Texas: oops, sorry y'all

[tclambert]

12. Texas apologize?

Hell, no. They're proud of their executions. If they execute the wrong Carlos, that just means they can find another Carlos to execute.

[ashling]

5. I don't mean to be flippant, but

did anyone notice the source of this story? When they are calling us to account in Oman, things have gone a little too far.

[Kolesar]

9. From France

but I get your drift
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gKjcKUa17t1CXiTjPw8tN-V6fNSg?docId=CNG.37ab293d08346aa6f7c1d1bfbdd5758f.491

[kirby]

17. Here is link to Columbia Law School site...

http://www3.law.columbia.edu/hrlr/ltc/

It appears to contain all the info you could ever want...

[Ex-Pat Pats Fan]

7. IS not the first

WON'T be the last

[ashling]

10. Oh, I'm sure of it

This particular newspaper link was of interest to me because of some cross-cultural cleavages from graduate school. One of my professors (and a good friend, our families get together often) went to Oman on an Fulbright Scholarship type trip. I also know another professor from that connection who was in Oman and did a book. We are all from Texas.

[Gabby Hayes]

8. And McDuff was walking the streets

Two months before DeLuna's execution, convicted mass murderer Kenneth McDuff was released under pressure from Rick Perry's hero, Gov. Bill Clements, to help relieve overcrowding in Texas prisons. McDuff is believed to have killed again within three days. We do not know how many he killed in Texas. He may well have killed in your state too.

Since then, Perry has given us "Wrong Way" John Bradley, whose involvement in the Todd Willingham case is well known, but perhaps not the matter of falsely-accused Michael Morton, who spent a quarter-century in prison. Another suspect was quickly charged with the murder of Morton's wife, and he has pled innocent. Will he get the fair trial that Morton was denied? Who knows? In the meantime there is a chill blowing in from Williamson County where people are wondering if another serial killer was and still is loose.

Anyway, it's election time and Bradley and the Williamson County "justice" system are getting a faceful from another Republican candidate named Jana Duty, whose television ads are the most blunt in recent memory. I don't live in Williamson County but I would even vote for a Republican if it would help flush that toilet. Suffice it to say that people in surrounding counties are getting nervous about the chaos in the neighboring "Law and Order Capital of the World." Texans in general better be nervous too, because the next group of candidates from the Bush Machine are preparing to move up in the next election.

[Judi Lynn]

23. There's a new group of these sociopaths on deck for the next election? Bad, bad news.

Who doesn't remember _{George W. Bush's} imiation of that lady who was put to death for murder, when he outdid himself by smirking, "please don't kill me."

It's also hard to forget the fact he and Jeb Bush appeared to both be zestfully enjoying their capital punishment race during their terms as governors.

They're going to new lengths to give "idle rich" an even uglier face.

[sulphurdunn]

11. The farthest up the media

food chain I can find anything else about this is the Huffington Post. There's lots of stuff farther down. One might concluded that someone charged with murder in Texas, who has a public defender, is pretty much a dead man walking.

[valerief]

13. Oh, well, as long as it's not a multi-millionaire or billionaire going to prison.

That's all that matters in America.

[Judi Lynn]

24. May gawd protect this country's fine billionaires, like T. Cullen Davis, Texas oil guy, from trials

and all those other inconveniences, when they go off the deep end.

Billionaire oil man goes to trial for murdering his daughter and wife's boyfriend, shooting a witness, assaulting his wife, paying to murder a judge

~snip~
People on all sides of the issue have often speculated about whether the outcome would have been different had Cullen not been one of the richest men in Texas. Cullen himself admits that it might.

"I was able to pay for what I needed to be found not guilty," he said in 2000. "If I had not had the money to hire the people I hired to investigate what went on and everything that we used and needed, I might have been sitting in prison right now."

http://bagandtag.blogspot.com/2004/08/billionaire-oil-man-goes-to-trial-for.html

[Rozlee]

15. The Holy Inquisition Excuse

"I would gladly burn a hundred innocents if there was one guilty among them." Rick Perry must be the reincarnation of Torquemada. Except, I'm sure the torturer had a much higher IQ.

[KansDem]

16. Anyone applauding now?

Despicable ghouls...

[closeupready]

20. Some say they worship a cruel God; so if they are made in His image,

they must feel proud of this injustice.

[progressoid]

25. Sadly,

I would wager they still will applaud.

Sickening.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

18. Get rid of the whole fucking fraudulent brutal horrific institution. Get rid of it now.

Seriously, it does nothing.

No long term closure for victims families.

No true justice.

No actual deterrent effect.

Lots of horrific stories like this.

The thing is a plague on humanity and makes us look like animals.

Yes, I know someone will inevitably chime in and say, "But what about (insert particularly horrific crime where the killer admited guilt and showed no remorse)? Why should we keep him alive?"

I don't care. Lock him away. Throw away the key. Being confined in a 6x9 cell for the rest of one's natural life to think about one's crimes is plenty punishment enough.

Just get rid of the blight on humanity that is the death penalty.

[closeupready]

21. And the perpetrator goes on to kill more people.

That's something I think many people don't account for.

[dbackjon]

19. Shameful

[colsohlibgal]

22. No Shock And Yes, Just One of Many

While maybe some may deserve it or even want it, the state being in the business of murder has always bothered me. It's a seriously slippery slope.

To me decades in a cell are a horrible enduring punishment and a sentence that is fixable. I've heard it's actually cheaper as well.

Texas "justice" is a joke, there are people serving wildly ridiculous and lengthy sentences for stealing a candy bar or smoking a joint....and they seem to delight in snuffing human beings, I know Dubya sure looked like he did.

[humblebum]

26. The state of Texas really is guilty of a murder here and

should be forced to stop all executions and to completely support all of the man's immediate family members for the rest of their lives.

[tanyev]

27. Betcha Rick Perry won't even say "Oops."