PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "This science tells us that young people can make poor choices even under the best of circumstances. But youthful capital offenders rarely have experienced a stable and caring home life. Instead, they have experienced horrific abuse, neglect and trauma. Too often, prosecutors have downplayed or distorted these traumatic childhood experiences, while portraying youthful capital offenders as animal-like, even subhuman. In Wardlow’s case, the jury did not hear about his childhood experiences of physical, sexual and psychological abuse. It fielded no meaningful presentation of Wardlow’s youthful age as a possible mitigating factor in his sentencing. Instead, it listened to the prosecution portray Wardlow, an 18-year-old with no prior offenses, as a “stone-cold killer” and “an animal out in the wild.” In fact, in the 25 years since his conviction, Wardlow has become a model inmate, expressing deep remorse for his crime. The predictions turned out to be false."
COMMENTARY: "'Future dangerousness' an unfair standard for executions, by William S. Bush, published by The San Antonio Express-News. (William S. Bush is a professor of history at Texas A and M University-San Antonio.)
GIST: "A wolf goes out and devours those that are weaker than him … those that are defenseless … because that’s just what he is, he’s a predator.”
So argued the prosecution in the capital murder trial of Billy Joe Wardlow in February 1995. Two summers earlier, in June 1993, a then-18-year-old Wardlow had shot and killed 82-year-old Carl Cole in his doorway with a .45 he had lifted from his mother. The murder was not part of Wardlow’s half-baked plan; desperate to escape his abusive home, he had hoped to steal Cole’s pickup truck and run away with his girlfriend. When Cole fought back, Wardlow panicked and pulled the fateful trigger that ended one man’s life and destroyed his own.
Despite his troubled home life, which included physical, sexual and emotional abuse, Wardlow had no history of serious misbehavior. Just months past his 18th birthday, Wardlow was a first-time offender charged with capital murder, a terrible crime proven during his trial. The more difficult question concerned the appropriate punishment, how best to balance justice with mercy.
Since the reinstatement of capital punishment in the 1970s, Texas juries have wrestled with this difficult question hundreds of times. In Texas, capital murder sentences depend on the “probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society,” otherwise known as the “future dangerousness” standard. This provision has put prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, juries and courtroom observers in the role of the police captain portrayed by Tom Cruise in the 2002 science fiction film “Minority Report,” in which a “PreCrime” unit jailed individuals based on the crimes a computer predicted they would commit in the future. Similarly, the Texas “future dangerousness” standard required the Wardlow jury to predict whether a teenager convicted of murder would kill again while serving a life sentence in prison.
Real-world scientific experts repeatedly have exposed the science fiction quality of “future dangerousness,” most notably in cases involving youthful offenders such as Wardlow. We have known for over a century, since the founding of the nation’s first juvenile court in 1899, that young people are immature, unformed and more capable of rehabilitation than adults. In its 2005 decision banning the juvenile death penalty, the U.S. Supreme Court cited not only well-established psychological and psychiatric findings on adolescent development, but also then-new neuroscientific studies of the brain through adolescence and young adulthood. Citing this research, the court found that the so-called “teenage brain” was still maturing in critical regions governing long-term planning and decision-making. In ruling that the juvenile death penalty violated the Constitution, the court further suggested that predictions of future dangerousness were especially unreliable for young people under the age of 21.
This science tells us that young people can make poor choices even under the best of circumstances. But youthful capital offenders rarely have experienced a stable and caring home life. Instead, they have experienced horrific abuse, neglect and trauma. Too often, prosecutors have downplayed or distorted these traumatic childhood experiences, while portraying youthful capital offenders as animal-like, even subhuman.
In Wardlow’s case, the jury did not hear about his childhood experiences of physical, sexual and psychological abuse. It fielded no meaningful presentation of Wardlow’s youthful age as a possible mitigating factor in his sentencing. Instead, it listened to the prosecution portray Wardlow, an 18-year-old with no prior offenses, as a “stone-cold killer” and “an animal out in the wild.” In fact, in the 25 years since his conviction, Wardlow has become a model inmate, expressing deep remorse for his crime. The predictions turned out to be false.
In Texas, the nation’s death penalty capital, the repeated use of skewed, misleading and inaccurate presentations of “future dangerousness” has led to over 100 executions of youthful offenders who were between the ages of 17 and 21 at the time of their crimes. This shameful history flies in the face of science and legal jurisprudence. More fundamentally, as the legal activist Bryan Stevenson reminds us, “each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.” No one is exonerating Wardlow or the many other youthful capital offenders who have passed through Texas’ death row. But, armed with a more complete record of their personal histories, we should find it within ourselves to temper justice with mercy.
Wardlow’s final appeal for clemency is in the hands of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. The state has scheduled his execution for Wednesday."
The entire commentary can be read 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/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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