EDITORIAL: "The latest California death row exoneration shows why we need to end the death penalty." published by The L.A. Times Editorial Board on April 27, 2018. (Thanks to Dr. Mike Bowers, CSIDDS, Forensics in Focus, for bringing this case to our attention).
PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "In fact, the first nurses and doctors who examined the semiconscious and battered girl in 1991 observed no injuries suggesting she had been raped or sodomized, but those details were not passed along to the medical expert witnesses who testified in court. Injuries later observed at two other hospitals were likely caused by that first effort to save her life, which included attempts to insert an adult-sized catheter. Convicting Benavides was an egregious miscarriage of justice; he spent a quarter-century on death row for a crime he apparently did not commit. His exoneration serves as a reminder of what ought to be abundantly clear by now: that despite jury trials, appellate reconsideration and years of motions and counter-motions, the justice system is not infallible, and it is possible (or perhaps inevitable) that innocent people will end up facing execution at the hands of the state. Not all of them will be saved, as Benavides was."
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GIST: "A Kern County Superior Court judge last week ordered that a 68-year-old former farmworker, Vicente Benavides Figueroa, be released from San Quentin's death row
after the local district attorney declared she would not retry him.
Benavides had been in prison for more than 25 years after being
convicted of raping, sodomizing and murdering his girlfriend's
21-month-old daughter. Benavides was freed after all but one of the medical experts who testified against him recanted their conclusions
that the girl had, in effect, been raped to death — conclusions they
had reached after reviewing incomplete medical records. In fact, the
first nurses and doctors who examined the semiconscious and battered
girl in 1991 observed no injuries suggesting she had been raped or
sodomized, but those details were not passed along to the medical expert
witnesses who testified in court. Injuries later observed at two other
hospitals were likely caused by that first effort to save her life,
which included attempts to insert an adult-sized catheter. Convicting
Benavides was an egregious miscarriage of justice; he spent a
quarter-century on death row for a crime he apparently did not commit.
His exoneration serves as a reminder of what ought to be abundantly
clear by now: that despite jury trials, appellate reconsideration and
years of motions and counter-motions, the justice system is not
infallible, and it is possible (or perhaps inevitable) that innocent
people will end up facing execution at the hands of the state. Not all
of them will be saved, as Benavides was. Innocent people end up facing execution at the hands of the state. The
case also ought to remind us of the dangers inherent in California's
efforts to speed up the calendar for death penalty appeals under
Proposition 66, which voters approved in 2016. Moving more quickly to
execute convicted death row inmates increases the likelihood that due
process will be given short shrift and the innocent will be put to
death. Benavides — described in court filings as a seasonal worker with
intellectual disabilities — was convicted in 1993. But the records that
blew up the case against Benavides, but also raised doubt that Consuelo
Verdugo had been murdered at all, were not uncovered until about 2000.
Proposition 66 makes it less likely that such diligent research can be
completed in the single year it gives
appellate attorneys to file their cases (a process that currently
consumes three years or more), and thus more likely that innocent people
will be put to death. This
rush-to-execute mood isn't California's alone. Florida adopted its own
speed-up legislation five years ago. And around the country, pro-death
penalty advocates argue that the condemned take advantage of the appeals
process to delay their executions. Federal statistics
for 2013, the last year available, show an average of 15 1/2 years
between sentence and execution for people on death row in the U.S. At
least 365 people have been on California's death row for 20 years or more. Benavides
was released after more than 25 years. Two half-brothers in North
Carolina spent about 30 years under death sentences before they were exonerated.
Since the Supreme Court revived the death penalty in 1976, more than
150 people have been exonerated of the murders for which they were
condemned (in most cases that also meant the real killers got away with
it), with an average of more than 11 years between sentence and exoneration. A 2014 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences estimated
that at least 4% of the people sitting on America's death rows are
probably innocent. With a national death row population of 2,700 people,
that means more than 100 people currently under death sentences
probably are innocent — about 30 of them in California. A rush to
execution will only increase the chances that state governments will
execute the innocent in the name of the people. The
unfixable problem with the death penalty is that mistakes get made,
witnesses lie, confessions get coerced — all factors that can lead to
false convictions. It is abjectly immoral to speed things up by limiting
due process. The better solution is to get rid of the death penalty
altogether."
The entire editorial can be found at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/c
