“I never died”, said he
by digby
The NY Times featured an amazing story this morning about famed union man, Joe Hill. Seems there’s some proof that he didn’t commit the murder for which he was executed after all. This seems all the more poignant and relevant considering the current crusade to kill off the labor movement once and for all.
Hill’s status as a labor icon and the debate about his conviction certainly never died. And now a new biography makes the strongest case yet that Hill was wrongfully convicted of murdering a local grocer, the charge that led to his execution at age 36.
The book’s author, William M. Adler, argues that Hill was a victim of authorities and a jury eager to deal a blow to his radical labor union, as well as his own desire to protect the identity of his sweetheart.
And here I thought that couldn’t happen in America, where our justice system supposedly never errs in capital cases. Not that many people care about that, anyway. As one of Rick “Crotch” Perry’s fans is supposed to have said, “It takes balls to execute an innocent man.”
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