WEB POSTED 08-09-2000

WITH LIBERTY AND
JUSTICE FOR WHOM?

Recently, the news media have been increasingly focused on one of the gravest injustices in recorded human history�the legal lynching, which has replaced the illegal lynching, of Black people in the United States. The July 3rd issue of NEWSWEEK magazine contained an article entitled: "A RECKONING ON DEATH ROW", bearing the subtitle "You don�t have to be soft on crime to see we�re killing people without being sure they�re guilty." As a case in point, the author, Jonathan Alter writes, "Last year I interviewed a Missouri man, Roy Roberts, the night before his execution. There was no physical evidence, witnesses changed their stories and Roberts passed three lie-detector tests. I began to wonder: are we really executing people without knowing for sure? We are."

Governor George W. Bush, Mr. Alter points out, issued his first-ever reprieve this Spring. Bush, he points out, "had previously turned down such testing in cases that didn�t get as much publicity."

The writer describes the evidence in the murder case against Gary Graham, who was executed in late June, as "thin."

"There was no DNA, fingerprint or physical evidence," he states. "During the trial, the jury was told that Graham was arrested in possession of a .22-caliber pistol similar to the one used in the crime � but not told that the Houston police found that they were in fact different guns." He further points out that, of the eight eyewitnesses, seven could not identify Graham in the original police reports, and the only witness who purported to identify him had her story contradicted by two other witnesses (who were never called to testify).

Texas, the writer points out, has executed three times as many inmates as the next state (Virginia), and is one of the few states without a public-defender system, and that in 1995, Governor George Bush vetoed a bill that would have provided for one.

In an unrelated (more or less) story, the July 24th issue of the CHICAGO TRIBUNE begins: "White defendants are more likely than black defendants to work out plea bargains saving them from the death penalty in federal cases, according to an analysis of 146 cases prosecuted since Congress reinstated federal capital punishment in 1988." It is pointed out that 60 per cent of white defendants have avoided capital punishment through a negotiated settlement, while only 41 per cent of Black defendants have reached such an agreement.

The July 30th issue of the NEW YORK TIMES declared in a story headline, "EVIDENCE OF INNOCENCE CAN COME TOO LATE FOR FREEDOM." The subhead read, "Justice Delayed and Denied". The story begins: "Newly discovered evidence may seem like the unjustly convicted�s dream come true, but the reality is that such evidence rarely makes a difference in this country. Once a jury has reached a verdict or a judge has ruled, lawyers say, the odds are overwhelmingly against reopening a case, no matter how compelling the new information is." According to a law professor at Boston University, "It would be a real indictment of the system if many were successful. You wouldn�t expect a system that papers over its many flaws to give up the ghost all of a sudden when it gets to a federal judge."