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Death Penalty News
60 Minutes - Evidence of Innocence: The case of Michael Morton
Questions of Innocence
Monday, 26 March 2012
March 25, 2012 4:20 PM
After
nearly 25 years in prison, Michael Morton was exonerated by a DNA test.
Did a prosecutor hide evidence that could have proven Morton's
innocence during his 1987 trial?
Slate - The Exoneration of Bennett Barbour
Questions of Innocence
Thursday, 15 March 2012
Virginia knows it
has DNA evidence that may prove the innocence of dozens of men convicted
of crimes they didn’t commit. Men just like Barbour. So why won’t the
state say who they are?
By Dahlia Lithwick|Posted Monday, March 12, 2012, at 7:02 PM ET
101
Bennett Barbour as a younger man
Bennett Barbour was convicted in 1978 of a rape he didn’t commit.
At trial, he had an alibi supported by several witnesses. He didn’t
match the victim’s description of her attacker. Barbour suffers from a
severe bone disease that would have made it nearly impossible for him to
be the assailant. Police found no physical evidence connecting him to
the crime, beyond the eyewitness identification by his alleged victim. Barbour was handed an 18-year sentence and paroled after nearly five years.
He tells me his time in prison was “a nightmare.” He has cancer now,
“all over my body,” and travels regularly to Richmond for treatment. In
prison, he says, “everything is taken away. Your pride ...” as his voice
trails off. Jonathan Sheldon, a lawyer familiar with his case says,
“People think, ‘Oh, he only got five years.’ But in that five years he
lost his six-month-old marriage, and scarred his relationship with his
daughter. That five years broke him.”
Read Full Story >>
Read more...
NYTimes - When Innocence Is Not Enough
The Death Penalty Nationwide
Sunday, 04 March 2012
Advertise on NYTimes.com
Opinion
When Innocence Isn’t Enough
By RAYMOND BONNER
EDWARD LEE ELMORE turned 53 in January. For more than half his life, the
soft-spoken African-American who doesn’t understand the concept of
north, south, east and west, or of summer, fall, winter and spring, was
in a South Carolina prison, most of it on death row.
Enlarge This Image
Mary Ann Chastain/Associated Press
Edward Lee Elmore was in prison for 30 years,
convicted of a crime that the evidence strongly suggests he did not
commit.
On Friday, Mr. Elmore walked out of the courthouse in Greenwood, S.C., a
free man, as part of an agreement with the state whereby he denied any
involvement in the crime but pleaded guilty in exchange for his freedom.
This was his 11,000th day in jail.
Read More>>
VA Pilot - 'Triggerman' revision killed by Va. Senate panel
For the fifth year in a row, the Virginia General Assembly has rejected legislation to expand the state's death penalty law.
The Senate Courts of Justice Committee voted 8-6, with one
abstention, on Wednesday to kill a proposal to allow the death penalty
for accomplices who share a murderer's intent to kill. The bill would
have revised Virginia's "triggerman rule," which in most cases allows
capital punishment only for the person who does the actual killing.
Full Story >>
More...
Postlocal - House Votes to Redefine 'Triggerman' Rule
WVTF/Radio IQ - DNA Proves Wrongful Conviction
Rich Times-Disp - Bill to expand eligibility for capital murder defeated in Senate committee
Virginian-Pilot Editorial - Unwise expansion of death penalty
