DEBATE ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY

One of the most powerful arguments against the death penalty is the reality that innocent people will be executed. This is not a mere possibility but a reality. Innocent people have been executed. Others have spent years and years in prison on death row to be later found innocent of the murders they had been convicted and sentenced for. Those who favor the death penalty must also argue why they believe that the execution of innocent people is an acceptable price to be paid in order to continue a barbaric and inhumane practice. Some who argue that the system as it is constructed has enough checks and balances that it is impossible to make a mistake on whether to execute a human being who is innocent need to simply take a look at the evidence which shows otherwise.

The Case of Timothy Evans

Timothy Evans was a mentally retarded man in England with a wife Beryl Thorley and child with another child on the way. He walked into the local police station on November 29, 1949 and told the police that his wife had died and that he had put her body down the drain. When the police went around to his apartment and did not immediately find the body they spoke with him again and he had said that his wife had died when the downstairs neighbor, Mr. John Reginald Christie had performed a botched abortion on his wife and she had died as a result. The bodies were not found until December 2, 1949. Mr. Evans was taken back to the police station where he was interrogated until he either confessed, signed a confession or the police lied about him doing either. This is one of the hallmarks of many "investigations" where the police do not do any investigation and instead concentrate their efforts on the one suspect they believe to be guilty of the crime. This single mindedness and lack of attention to facts and evidence that does not fit into the preconceived ideas of what is already believed has put many people in prison and jails as well as put them on death row. The fate of Timothy Evans was sealed. While Mr. Evans continued to blame Mr. Christie for the deaths, Mr. Christie was seen by the court as a more sympathetic figure and his testimony was believed. Mr. Timothy Evans was convicted and then hanged on March 9th, 1950.

In 1953 a new tenant had moved into the apartment that had been occupied by Mr. John Reginald Christie. The new tenant opened up an alcove in the back of the kitchen and found the bodies of three people there. The police when notified of then began a search for Mr. Christie. By the time they found him they had found two more bodies in the garden as well as finding Mrs. Christie under the floorboards. When he was taken into custody he admitted to the murders of Mrs. Evans and her child.

Throughout the trial and subsequent publicity surrounding the case of Mr. Christie, the self confessed serial killer, the authorities tried to mute the mounting questions about Mr. Evans and his hanging. A mistake had been made and nobody wished to bring this up. Mr. Christie was brought to trial for the murder of his wife and found guilty. Within twentyfour hours of this opposition MP's were clamoring for an investigation. An investigation was undertaken and an extremely poorly received result, the Scot Henderson report stated that Mr. Evans was indeed guilty and Mr. Christie was lying and everything was under control. What happened after this was a continuing storm where the government, as governments often do, said that everything was alright and as it should be. The growing understanding by the citizens of Britain was exactly the opposite. The growing public outrage led to a moratorium and the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965 with the penalty being in use in Northern Ireland unitl the Northern Ireland (Emergency Powers) Act 1973. In England the death penalty remained for treason, including murder of a member of the Royal Family and for piracy until the Human Rights Act of 1998 which repealed all use fo the death penalty in peace time. The Sixth Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights was signed by Britain in 1998.

In the United States of America

The Case of Randall Dale Adams: This man was the subject of the documentary The Thin Blue Line. Prosecutors in Texas had manufactured evidence to convict Mr. Adams for the murder of a Dallas police officer. They also used perjured testimony from the man who had actually murdered the police officer-David Harris. Mr. Adams was convicted based upon this and sent to death row in 1977. His conviction was affirmed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in 1979 by a vote of 9 to 0. . After all of the publicity and examination by the media the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals unanimously set aside his conviction in 1989. He had once come within three days of being executed until the Supreme Court had stayed his execution. His lawyer Randy Schaffer , who had worked for free on behalf of Mr. Adams, got a state district judge to rule that Randall Dale Adams deserved a new trial. The state of Texas declined to retry him.
Mr. Adams in testimony before the Texas state Legislature had this to say.

"The man you see before you is here by the grace of God. The fact that
it took twelve and a half years and a movie to prove my innocence should scare
the hell out of everyone in this room, and if it doesn't, then that scares the
hell out of me. In the beginning, I blamed David but David did not have the power to arrest me, indict me, and sentence me to die. The problem is larger than David Harris. Our criminal justice system, on paper, is the best in the world. But we're human, and so we make mistakes. If you execute and execute and execute, at some point you will execute an innocent man."

William Jent and Earnest Lee Miller

In the state of Florida these two were convicted in seperate trials and sentenced to death in 1979 of the murder and rape burning of Linda Gale Bradshaw. The federal judge who reviewed the case stated that state prosecutors had witheld exculpatory evidence and and acted with a "callous and deliberate disregard of the fundamental principles of truth and fairness." The federal judge in 1988 ordered a new trial within 90 days. Instead of a new trial, the state-under then State Attorney James T. Russell, offered to free these innocent men in exchange for a plea of guilty to second-degree murder. Those men took the deal in order to end their ordeal. Investigators, largely paid by the victims father who had stated that he didn't think Jent and Miller had murdered his daughter discovered that the victim's boyfriend, who had moved away after the murder started dating another woman whose burned body was found in a field. Two of the three supposed witnesses recanted as well.
In 1991, the Pasco Country Sheriff's Office paid the two 65,000 dollars in a wrongful arrest lawsuit. Most of that money went to pay the lawyers fees and expenses incurred by the victim's father. Both men have since remarried and have tried to go on with their lives. They had been on death row for nearly nine years.

James Richardson

James Richardson was originally sentenced to death by the state of Florida in 1968 for poisoning his children. Numerous examples of misconduct by the prosecutor led the Miami State Attorney's office to undertake a complete examination of the facts of the case which concluded that Mr. Richardson was innocent. He had been on death row for 21 years.

Henry Drake

Henry Drake was sentenced to death in 1976 by the state of Georgia. Mr. Drake was granted a new trial by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in 1985. At the second trial the jury could not reach agreement. At his third trial he was convicted again but sentenced to life. Six months later he was exonerated by his alleged accomplice and the parole board set him free.

Anthony Silah Brown

Mr. Brown was sentenced to die in 1983 despite a jury recommendation that he be sentenced to life in prison. Brown received a new trial because of trial errors. At the retrial the chief witness against Mr. Brown admitted that his original testimony had been perjured and so Mr. Brown was acquitted.

Earl Washington

In 2000, Virginia Governor James Gilmore pardoned Earl Washington after DNA testing found no trace of him at the scene of the murder for which he was convicted. “We came breathtakingly close to executing a man who wasn’t guilty of the crime,” said State Senator Janet Howell.

Roy Krone

In 2002, Ray Krone was released from death row by the state of Arizona after DNA tests confirmed his innocence.

Clarence Lee Brandley

In 1990, after nine years on death row and twice coming within days of execution, Clarence Lee Brandley was freed by the state of Texas. Judge Perry Pickett said, “The court unequivocally concludes that the color of Clarence Brandley’s skin was a substantial factor which pervaded all aspects of the state’s capital prosecution of him.”

Federico Macias

In 1993, Federico Macias was granted a stay two days before his scheduled execution in Texas. Ultimately, his conviction was overturned. The court found gross ineffectiveness of trial counsel and possible innocence.