GIST: Wednesday evening, the state of Texas executed Ivan Abner Cantu, a 50-year-old Dallas native who maintained his innocence and garnered support from celebrities asking for his life to be spared, the Washington Post reported.
Cantu’s execution — the first one carried out in Texas this year — comes more than two decades after he was convicted in a fatal shooting in 2000.
Cantu’s case drew the attention of celebrities Kim Kardashian and Martin Sheen, as well as U.S. Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.), all of whom supported Cantu.
His advocates have long pleaded for Cantu to have another day in court — claiming that prosecutorial and defense misconduct, the discovery of physical evidence and a witness’s admission to lying during the trial should have warranted a pause to the execution.
“I can’t say for sure that he’s innocent; but I can’t say for sure that he’s guilty,” Abraham Bonowitz, executive director of the anti-capital punishment organization Death Penalty Action, said during an online vigil Wednesday for Cantu. “There’s just too much doubt.”
The entry can be read at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. 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/
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/
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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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater's attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, "Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it's the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.
https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-12348801
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