Thanks, Nick. Horrifying and fascinating, and just one example of why
capital punishment must be done away with.
And for Christians who say that there's a biblical mandate for the taking of
life as appropriate punishment for sin (remember, death by stoning wasn't
just for murderers), I would point out the example of Jesus Christ.
When the woman caught in the act of adultery -- in flagrante delicto, as I
believe they would say at Logos -- he knew he could, within the law,
encourage and participate in her death. He could have picked up a rock or
two himself and cheered on the other punishers. He had the right, encoded
into law for centuries. No one would have raised an eyebrow; plenty would
have heaved the stones.
But he chose not to have her stoned. He chose to not invoke capital
punishment. He didn't break the law, he rose above it. By inviting the
sinless among the crowd to be the first to pick up stones, he, as the
omniscient God, knew that none would and that she would be spared. Spared,
it seems, for something better -- not only the forgiveness and absolution of
her sins, but also as a living example of mercy and justice personified.
The story is not a primer on criminal justice, nor is it intended to be. It
doesn't discuss how other sinners and lawbreakers ought to be treated, and
it doesn't lay out a grid whereby mercy can be plotted alongside justice.
It simply shows that what I and others have called "the Third Way of the
Cross" is the path that brings glory to God.
If Jesus could jettison the requirements of the law for a higher purpose --
ultimate justice and mercy -- then we who trust in him can no longer cling
to an absolutism that delivers automatic death to those who commit the acts
leading, by law, to capital punishment. Murder and treason are horrible,
terrible acts, but a thinking approach to punishment, justice,
rehabilitation, context and mercy best reflects the Author of the moral code
Christians claim the country was founded on. Let's not employ a selective
allegiance to him that requires that we reach back to the Old Testament and
brush Jesus away in our eagerness to extract "biblical justice" from the
criminals and sinners in our midst.
keely
(a pro-lifer even for the already-born)
From: nickgier at adelphia.net
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: [Vision2020] Death Penalty Must Be Abolised
Date: Wed, 3 May 2006 11:43:12 -0700
May 3, 2006, New York Times
Faulty Testimony Sent 2 to Death Row, Panel Finds
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL
HOUSTON, May 2 — Faulty evidence masquerading as science sent two men to
death row for arson in Texas and led to the execution of one of them, a
panel of private fire investigators concluded in a report released Tuesday
in Austin.
The report, prepared for the Innocence Project, a legal clinic dedicated to
overturning wrongful convictions, was presented to a new state panel, the
Texas Forensic Science Commission, created by the Legislature last year to
oversee the integrity of crime laboratories.
Barry C. Scheck, a co-director of the Innocence Project, said the report
offered "important evidence of serious scientific negligence or misconduct
in the investigations, reports and testimony of Texas state fire marshals"
and called into question not just the two cases but also many others based
on similar arson analyses.
The nine-member forensic panel, late to start up and as yet unfinanced,
"will review it and investigate," said its chairwoman, Debbie Lynn
Benningfield, a fingerprint expert and retired deputy administrator of the
Houston Police Department's latent laboratory section.
The report examined prosecution arson testimony in the trials of two men:
Ernest R. Willis, convicted of killing two women in a house fire in 1986 in
Iraan, and Cameron T. Willingham, convicted of burning his home in Corsicana
in 1992, killing his three young daughters.
Mr. Willingham was executed by lethal injection on Feb. 17, 2004, after Gov.
Rick Perry rejected a plea for a last-minute stay, once the courts and the
State Board of Pardons and Paroles had declined to intervene.
Mr. Willis was exonerated and pardoned on Oct. 6, 2004, and collected almost
$430,000 for 17 years of wrongful imprisonment.
The report says that prosecution witnesses in both cases interpreted fire
indicators like cracked glass and burn marks as evidence that the fires had
been set, when more up-to-date technology shows that the indicators could
just as well have signified an accidental fire. In one case, the signs were
accepted as proof of guilt, the report said; in the other, they were
discarded as misleading.
"These two outcomes are mutually exclusive," Mr. Scheck said. "Willis cannot
be found 'actually innocent' and Willingham executed based on the same
scientific evidence."
Mr. Willingham's stepmother, Eugenia Willingham, who traveled to Austin from
Ardmore, Okla., to attend a news conference about the report, said, "I've
known it all along," adding, "I wish it could have happened before he was
executed."
To analyze the evidence, the Innocence Project commissioned five unpaid
experts: Douglas J. Carpenter of Combustion Science and Engineering in
Columbia, Md.; Daniel L. Churchward of Kodiak Fire and Safety Consulting in
Fort Wayne, Ind.; John J. Lentini of Applied Technical Services in Marietta,
Ga.; Michael A. McKenzie of the law firm Cozen O'Connor in Atlanta; and
David M. Smith of Associated Fire Consultants in Tucson.
In the Willingham trial, the committee found, a deputy state fire marshal,
Manuel Vasquez, erred in tracing the blaze to an accelerant. The committee
discredited his finding of arson. "Each and every one of the 'indicators'
listed by Mr. Vasquez means absolutely nothing," the report said.
A Corsicana assistant fire chief, Douglas Fogg, "seemed to harbor many of
the same misconceptions held by Mr. Vasquez," the report went on. It
concluded that the fire had been "grossly misinterpreted." Mr. Fogg did not
respond to a message left on his answering machine. Mr. Vasquez is dead.
Calls to offices in the Texas Fire/Arson Investigation division of the Texas
Department of Insurance were not returned Tuesday.
Other Texas arson investigators and a retired agent of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation testified that the fire charged to Mr. Willis was also arson,
the report said. One prosecution witness said fires were rarely caused by
accidentally dropped cigarettes; in fact, cigarettes are the leading cause
of fire deaths, the report said.
Many arson investigators were self-taught and "inept," the report said,
adding: "There is no crime other than homicide by arson for which a person
can be sent to death row based on the unsupported opinion of someone who
received all his training 'on the job.' "
Texas leads the nation in inmates serving time for arson, the report said:
666 as of 2002, the latest year for which statistics are available.
Kathy Walt, a spokeswoman for Governor Perry, said the forensic science
commission, to which Mr. Perry names four members, was the right body "to
help the criminal justice system improve by establishing appropriate
standards for labs and investigations."
Ms. Walt said that minutes before Mr. Willingham's execution, the governor
was faxed an earlier report by an arson specialist, Gerald L. Hurst,
disputing the prosecution's arson testimony, but that Mr. Perry had no way
of evaluating it after the courts and pardons board had turned down the
final appeals.
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