Friday, May 18, 2012

YES, AMERICA, WE HAVE EXECUTED AN INNOCENT MAN - THE STATE MURDER of CARLOS DeLUNA

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/05/yes-america-we-have-executed-an-innocent-man/257106/

THE BACKSTORY
Reading through the manuscript last weekend, jarred by what I was seeing, I began to jot down a list of things that went terribly wrong in the DeLuna case -- issues of fact, of evidence, of testimony, of motives, of incompetence, of indifference, of fraud, of morality, of integrity, of constitutionality -- that should have been raised and answered long before DeLuna was convicted, much less executed, back in the 1980s. I stopped when I got to 10. Here's the list.
    1. There was no DNA or blood evidence on DeLuna despite bloody murder scene. There were no fingerprints. There was only one eyewitness and he was sketchy about what he had seen.
    2. Police/prosecutors knew the whereabouts of another, more likely, suspect. But they didn't tell the defense this before or after the trial.

    3. When the defendant identified the likely killer shortly before trial, the police and prosecutors did not reasonably follow up even though they knew that the man identified was capable of committing the crime.

    4. Based upon early witness reports, the police at first sought another suspect. They did not share this information with the defense even though the two men (the two Carloses) looked eerily like one another.
    5. The police officer collecting witness accounts relayed inaccurate and incomplete descriptions of suspects to the police dispatcher, who radioed them to officers in manhunt.
    6. Police investigators botched the crime scene by turning it back to the store manager just two hours after the murder to be washed down and reopened immediately.
    7. Evidence from the initial investigation was checked out by a prosecutor the day after the trial and was never returned. Any usuable DNA thus was lost.

    8. The trial judge appointed a solo civil practitioner without any criminal trial experience much less any capital trial experience. The defense did not call a single "mitigating" witness in the sentencing phase of trial.
    9. Police investigators did not measure a bloody footprint they photographed at the scene of the crime or test a cigarette butt they found on the floor of the store where the victim died.
    10. A 9-11 dispatcher failed to quickly dispatch police to the scene of the crime, despite the fact that the victim had called for help. Later, the "manhunt tape" made by dispatchers was taped over and not turned over to the defense by the police.

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