DNA Tests Confirm Executed Va. Man Guilty

[lavenderdiva]

01-12-2006 2:07 PM
By KRISTEN GELINEAU, Associated Press Writer

RICHMOND, Va. -- New DNA tests confirmed the guilt of a man who went to his death in Virginia's electric chair in 1992 proclaiming his innocence, a spokeswoman for the governor said Thursday.

snip:
The tests, ordered by the governor last month, prove Roger Keith Coleman was guilty of the 1981 rape and murder of his sister-in-law, Gov. Mark R. Warner's spokeswoman Ellen Qualls said.

Coleman was convicted and sentenced to death in 1982 for the murder of 19-year-old Wanda McCoy, his wife's sister, who was found raped, stabbed and nearly beheaded in her home in the coal mining town of Grundy.

snip:
Initial DNA and blood tests in 1990 placed Coleman within the 0.2 percent of the population who could have produced the semen at the crime scene. But his lawyers said the expert they hired to conduct those initial DNA tests misinterpreted the results.

The governor agreed to a new round of more sophisticated DNA tests in one of his last official acts. Warner, who has been mentioned as a possible Democratic candidate for president in 2008, leaves office on Saturday.

link:
http://neworleans.cox.net/cci/newsnational/national?_mode=view&_state=maximized&view=article&id=D8F3BDR0C


edit to include additional link:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10823771/

[Endangered Specie]

1. What, you mean not EVERYONE on death row is INNOCENT?

Whoda thunk it?

Red "You're gonna fit right in. Everyone in here is innocent. Heywood, what're you in here for?"
Heywood "Didn't do it. Lawyer fucked me."

[ET Awful]

8. Seems to me the more important question is whether everyone on death row

is guilty.

I know how some folks love a good execution, but get real.

[LiberteToujours]

2. That's definitely a relief

But I'm still against the death penalty.

[Connie_Corleone]

3. KICK. nt

[jsamuel]

4. unless, of course, someone planted the semen there to implicate him

just saying... are we REALLY SURE?

[pinerow]

6. That's taking the conspiracy theory just a bit too far...

and it's "semen"...not seamen, unless you're talking about some sailors...

[jsamuel]

11. yes, true, but the point is that HOW SURE ARE WE?

50%?

60%?

70%?

80%?

90%?

99%?

99.99%?


How sure do we have to be to kill someone?

[Innocent Smith]

15. maybe even 100% sure

Some of us may have a problem with capital punishment even if we are 100% sure of guilt.

[PAdem2]

20. old submarine joke

long and hard and full of seamen.....

[formercia]

21. No ship of the Desert jokes, please.

[oscarmitre]

7. Well it's possible but not likely

Without knowing each detail of the evidence presented in the trial and any rebuttal of that evidence I can't say for sure but it looks like he had a motive, he had an opportunity and he had a method for the crime. On the face of it he also had a fair trial.

Now, why would anyone bother to plant his semen inside the victim to have him convicted? What would be the motive?

Nope, I think this one is closed.

[MrPrax]

17. Crimes of passion?

If one is only going by DNA from semen, then it is possible to suggest that the woman might have been unfaithful, discovered and then killed by jealous husband...in this case it is the sister-in-law whom el creepo murdered.

Probably NOT the case here, but it is easy to think of many scenarios where this might follow the pattern and produce a motive.

[Burning Water]

18. At some point

a final decision has to be made.

[pinerow]

5. Well...there ya go...if it had proved him"not guilty", we would

have been decrying the injustice. As for me...all this proves is that this fellow was the right one...it certainly does not mean that there are no innocent people on death row...Illinois proved that...:shrug:

[Codeine]

9. So they got this one right.

But how many others have they gotten wrong?

[RaleighNCDUer]

13. And even his being guilty,

does that justify killing him?

If murder deserves the death penalty, why don't we have 20,000 exectutions each year?

The death penalty is a crapshoot, that is weighted against the poor and ignorant. With 20,000 murders a year, if each deserves the death penalty we should have had 400,000 executions over the past 20 years, not just 1000. Frankly, even DP advocates don't want to see us executing 20,000 people a year. The fact is, the only purpose of the death penalty is to inflame the public to support a law-and-order politician's agenda.

Why is it that we are the ONLY western country that still has the death penalty, and at the same time we are the western country with the highest murder rate?

[darkism]

10. OK, sure.

That doesn't make executing the guy ok.

[jseankil]

12. Raped, stabbed, and nearly beheaded. I think it does make it okay.

But that's the debate isn't it?

[John Q. Citizen]

29. What it almost sounds like you are saying is that by

executing the perp, it makes it OK that he committed his crime.

He wanted to rape, stab and murder and he's now paid the price. He's all paid up.

Kind of like a shopper who wants a loaf of bread and puts it on the credit card.

It's OK because they pay the price. Everyone is all even, all paid up.

I can't look at it like that.

I believe it is wrong for the strong to prey on the weak whether out in the world or behind prison walls in the death chamber.

[jseankil]

30. In no way does it sound like that.

How you got to that conclusion is bewildering and what a baffling comparison you give. If you do a crime you pay a price, be it time in prison or death. In neither case does that justify the crime.

You don't believe in the death penalty because it's the strong preying on the weak? So a raping murderer is now the weak victim? Come on!

[John Q. Citizen]

39. But the dead perp is done paying when he is put to death.

Even!

Killing a helpless, restrained, unarmed, defenseless monster is what it sounds like to me.

[rodeodance]

14. I am glad there is not someone else out there that did this crime--but I

am not for the death penality.

[daleo]

16. The story didn't really include many details about the tests

I think I will wait to see if there are any caveats regarding the testing. Its just a hunch.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

33. Here are the details....

The DNA samples were preserved by the scientist in California who, when ordered to return them to VA, decided not to, suspicious that they might be destroyed. It was just a fluke, and so, the defendant's evidence was perfectly preserved, without question.

I live in VA, and I'm very glad Gov. Warner ordered this test done. It was a good start in a Commonwealth that's only second to Texas in number of annual executions.

[alcibiades_mystery]

19. Guilty, innocent, doesn't matter to me

State shouldn't kill people. Period.

The anti-death penalty folks are extremely stupid to hitch their wagon to the innocence train. Opposition to the death penalty should not be based on the off-chance that an innocent person could be killed. It should be based on the fundamental principle that it is barbaric to kill, full stop, and the state shouldn't fucking do it.

[PAdem2]

24. It might matter to you

If you were in the prison with this guy. Lots of rapes/killing happen to prisoners by prisoners. They don't deserve that either, and killers & rapists aren't in isolation 24 hrs per day. It's a tough call but some few deserve it. That said, it should be rare and hard to do.

[alcibiades_mystery]

25. Nope

That's not the solution to the situation in the prisons, anymore than gassing everyone would be. They are equally barbaric.

[Book Lover]

27. And also that it is too much power to grant to any government

Our Founders created a thin government that has become overgrown (to put it mildly). To grant the power of execution as a criminal punishment is too much power to give any person acting in a governmental capacity to use properly. Shit, we give soldiers guidelines on who they can legally kill and not kill during both war- and peacetime. Why can't we constrain juries, judges, and lawmakers?

[Silverhair]

38. Juries, Judges, etc ARE constrained.

I guess you have never heard of sentencing guidlines, or of mandatory sentences.

[smitty]

22. A friend of mine is on the Milwaukee PD.

He opposes the death penalty because he strongly believes that innocent people have been executed. P.S. Wisconsin has never had the death penalty.

[saigon68]

26. Yes we did

It was abolished in 1850

[Nye Bevan]

23. I expected this

Douglas Wilder (the governor of VA at the time)let Coleman take a lie-detector test on the day of his execution, which he failed dismally.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

35. Yeah, but

lie detectors are crap, which is why their results aren't ever admissible in court.

[Innocent Smith]

36. why Coleman

When I first heard about this without any of the details of who the executed person was I was interested in what the results would be. And then I heard it was Coleman. Why him? I can remember at the time he was in the news that the evidence against him was pretty overwhelming. These results are not suprising at all. I hope there are plans to do future tests on other less definitive cases.

[NaturalHigh]

28. No surprise here.

I've read about this miserable SOB before. He was a vicious, criminal bastard long before he was convicted of killing his sister-in-law. I understand that this probably will not influence anyone's opinion toward the death penalty one way or the other, but Coleman was an absolute animal.

[skipos]

31. No surprise, but I am still against the death penalty. nt

[depakid]

32. Now that wasn't so hard

Why didn't Warner just order the freakin tests in the first place, instead of stalling on it all this time?

[OldLeftieLawyer]

34. Because there was an election this past November

The guy was dead for a long time, so Warner's delay was designed not to get in the way of Tim Kaine's election.

[Geo55]

37. Hmmmm....

I suppose if they were wrong,...they could've dug the ol' boy up and apologized......
give 'im a gift cert to Burger King or sumthin'.

[hollowdweller]

40. That was good Warner did that. There should be no fight about re testing

The truth should come out.

[aikoaiko]

41. This will probably change nothing...

Some of us will still be anti DP

Some of us will be for DP for convicted murderers


Me, I'm for it because I have blood lust for murderers, but I cringe at the thought of innocent people being killed because a justice system was imperfect.