QOTD: an innocent man who spent time on death row
by digby
From an op-ed in the New York Times:
The death penalty will never work. It will always be possible to execute an innocent person. I know. I spent almost nine years in prison, and two years on death row, for a crime I didn’t commit.
I was a Marine veteran with no criminal history. But I was arrested for the rape and murder of a child, then convicted and sentenced to death based on the mistaken identification of five eyewitnesses.
If it can happen to me, it could happen to you.
You’d think more people would get this but they don’t. In fact, they figure if you are caught in the maw of the legal system odds are you deserve whatever you get. if you didn’t do the crime you’re accused of you probably did something else. The system doesn’t make those kinds of mistakes.
And as for this guy, well he was finally exonerated, wasn’t he? No harm no foul. Surely all people who are innocent have and will get a similar happy ending. Because God. Or something.
This fellow’s full story here. He was exonerated by DNA evidence. Evidence which is not present at every crime scene. Evidence which not every jurisdiction will allow to be retested.
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