CAMERON TODD WILLINGHAM CASE: LAWYER, BLOGSTER JEFF GAMSO ON THE SEARCH FOR "THE ELUSIVE INCONTESTIBLY DEAD INNOCENT GUY."

"WILLINGHAM, THE FATHER OF THOSE CHILDREN, WAS EXECUTED IN FEBRUARY 2004. HE PROTESTED HIS INNOCENCE TO THE END.

IT'S NOT THAT INCONTESTABLE CASE OF THE DEAD INNOCENT GUY. BUT IT'S GETTING CLOSE. AT SOME POINT THE WEIGHT OF THE LIKELY MISTAKES STARTS TO WEIGH ON YOU.

SO NOW WHAT? WHAT WILL TEXAS DO? WILL IT CONCEDE THAT IT KILLED A LIKELY INNOCENT MAN? WILL HE GET A POSTHUMOUS PARDON? OR WILL THE STATE SAY THAT ALL THESE EXPERTS, INCLUDING THE ONE IT CHOSE TO REVIEW THE CASE, ARE BLOWING SMOKE, BURY THE DOUBTS, AIRBRUSH OUT THE WARTS?

I'M SORRY TO SAY THAT THE SMART MONEY IS ON THE SMOKE AND THE AIRBRUSH."

JEFF GAMSO; FROM HIS BLOG: "FOR THE DEFENCE: COMMENTARY BY AN OHIO CRIMINAL DEFENCE LAWYER."

Background: (Wikipedia); Cameron Todd Willingham (January 9, 1968 – February 17, 2004), born in Carter County, Oklahoma, was sentenced to death by the state of Texas for murdering his three daughters—two year old Amber Louise Kuykendall, and one year old twins Karmon Diane Willingham and Kameron Marie Willingham— by setting his house on fire. The fire occurred on December 23, 1991 in Corsicana, Texas. Lighter fluid was kept on the front porch of Willingham’s house as evidenced by a melted container found there. Some of this fluid may have entered the front doorway of the house carried along by fire hose water. It was alleged this fluid was deliberately poured to start the fire and that Willingham chose this entrance way so as to impede rescue attempts. The prosecution also used other arson theories that have since been brought into question. In addition to the arson evidence, a jailhouse informant claimed Willingham confessed that he set the fire to hide his wife's physical abuse of the girls, although the girls showed no other injuries besides those caused by the fire. Neighbors also testified that Willingham did not try hard enough to save his children. They allege he "crouched down" in his front yard and watched the house burn for a period of time without attempting to enter the home or go to neighbors for help or request they call firefighters. He claimed that he tried to go back into the house but it was "too hot". As firefighters arrived, however, he rushed towards the garage and pushed his car away from the burning building, requesting firefighters do the same rather than put out the fire. After the fire, Willingham showed no emotion at the death of his children and spent the next day sorting through the debris, laughing and playing music. He expressed anger after finding his dartboard burned in the fire. Firefighters and other witnesses found him suspicious of how he reacted during and after the fire. Willingham was charged with murder on January 8, 1992. During his trial in August 1992, he was offered a life term in exchange for a guilty plea, which he turned down insisting he was innocent. After his conviction, he and his wife divorced. She later stated that she believed that Willingham was guilty. Prosecutors alleged this was part of a pattern of behavior intended to rid himself of his children. Willingham had a history of committing crimes, including burglary, grand larceny and car theft. There was also an incident when he beat his pregnant wife over the stomach with a telephone to induce a miscarriage. When asked if he had a final statement, Willingham said: "Yeah. The only statement I want to make is that I am an innocent man - convicted of a crime I did not commit. I have been persecuted for 12 years for something I did not do. From God's dust I came and to dust I will return - so the earth shall become my throne. I gotta go, road dog. I love you Gabby." However, his final words were directed at his ex-wife, Stacy Willingham. He turned to her and said "I hope you rot in hell, bitch" several times while attempting to extend his middle finger in an obscene gesture. His ex-wife did not show any reaction to this. He was executed by lethal injection on February 17, 2004. Subsequent to that date, persistent questions have been raised as to the accuracy of the forensic evidence used in the conviction, specifically, whether it can be proven that an accelerant (such as the lighter fluid mentioned above) was used to start the fatal fire. Fire investigator Gerald L. Hurst reviewed the case documents including the trial transcriptions and an hour-long videotape of the aftermath of the fire scene. Hurst said, "There's nothing to suggest to any reasonable arson investigator that this was an arson fire. It was just a fire."

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I really like this recent column by Jeff Gamso - "The dead, innocent guy" - because he draws such a clear line between "legal exoneration" and "factual innocence," and he acknowledges "the problem that when we put our eggs in the innocence basket, we risk a whole lot of cracked yolks."

So who is Jeff Gamso?

His Web-site tells us that: "Criminal defense lawyer, civil libertarian (former Legal Director of American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio), anti-death penalty activist, public speaker. I am one third of GAMSO, HELMICK, AND HOOLAHAN, located at 1119 Adams Street, Second Floor, Toledo, Ohio 43604. My first career was English Professor. I studied medieval and renaissance English Literature, taught literature, film, and composition. I've been a film critic. NONE OF WHAT APPEARS IN THIS BLOG SHOULD BE TAKEN AS LEGAL ADVICE. If you want to hire me, I'd be happy to discuss that, but understand two important things: (1) e-mails are not secure; (2) your request to hire me does not make me your lawyer. Criminal defense lawyer, civil libertarian (former Legal Director of American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio), anti-death penalty activist, public speaker. I am one third of GAMSO, HELMICK, AND HOOLAHAN, located at 1119 Adams Street, Second Floor, Toledo, Ohio 43604. My first career was English Professor. I studied medieval and renaissance English Literature, taught literature, film, and composition. I've been a film critic..."

"Among some (many? a few? one lady in Dubuque, Iowa?) abolitionists, I'm known for disliking claims of innocence," the August 25, 2009 column, begins.

"Frankly, I'm never even sure what it means," it continues.

"There's legal innocence, but that's simply a failure of the state to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt or the success of an affirmative defense. You know, Mary did stab Elmo with the ice pick, but it was self-defense so she's legally innocent. Lots of people who do things that are ordinarily criminal are found not guilty (i.e., legally innocent) either because the jury got it wrong or the state screwed up or there was some legally acceptable defense. But that doesn't mean you want to have them over for dinner.

There's presumptive innocence, which comes at an earlier stage, has only to do with trials, and says that the accused will be presumed innocent unless and until the state proves guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Even the guiltiest folks (whatever that means and whoever they are) are presumed innocent before there's a finding of guilt made.

There's moral innocence, but outside newborns and perhaps Jesus or the Dalai Lama, that's a pretty limited group of people - and not who we're after.

We usually mean something like factual innocence. It wasn't self-defense because Mary did not, in fact, take an ice pick to Elmo. But what if Mary handed Steve the ice pick? Is she factually innocent? Might depend on the charge and the local law.

Innocence, you see, is not as simple a thing as it sounds.

That's why the exoneration lists are so controversial. The Death Penalty Information Center maintains what you might think of as the master list of people exonerated from death row. The current total is 135. That's a useful number we abolitionists like to bandy about, but as retentionists point out, it's a list of the legally exonerated, not necessarily the factually innocent, the wrong guy, the we just flat out got it wrongs. As Ward Campbell points out in an over-the-top but not entirely wrong condemnation of the list, it can't fairly be taken as a who's who of the innocent condemned.

Many of the cases abolitionists like to tout, Mumia Abu Jamal is a prime example, simply don't prove the claim. I mean, he may not have done it. But he may. Here in Ohio, John Spirko spent a couple of decades on death row for a murder that, frankly, there's no credible evidence he committed. But the absence of evidence of guilt isn't the same as actual proof that he's the wrong guy.

I like, in this context, to talk about O.J. and the glove. (You know, the one that if it didn't fit you had to acquit.) Let's assume the cops planted it. Does that mean he didn't kill Nicole? Most of the time when the cops lie and make up evidence it's to make a case stronger against someone they believe (often correctly) is guilty. It's far less common - not unheard of, but less common - for them to fake evidence with the intent of convicting the innocent.

Finally, of course, there's the problem that when we put our eggs in the innocence basket, we risk a whole lot of cracked yolks.

Take Roger Coleman, please. He conned a whole lot of good, committed people into believing that if they could just test his DNA they'd get the proof of the dead innocent guy, you know the one Scalia says doesn't exist, the executed person who is incontestably innocent. The Commonwealth of Virginia fought for years to prevent the testing (which tells you all you need to know about how confident it was that the right guy had been killed). And then, well, turns out Coleman did it. As more than one Virginia capital lawyer said, Coleman gave innocence a bad name.

And yet we keep searching. The elusive incontestably dead innocent guy is a quest precisely because (a) we know dead innocent guys are out there and we have a pretty good idea of who at least some of them are; (b) when we find him, or her, we'll have the hard evidence of something that will sure look a lot like what Harry Blackmun called "simple murder"; (c) personalizing the dead innocent guy, not just "there's more than one out there," but "We killed that innocent man over there," will move people. As Josef Stalin said,

A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths is just a statistic.

The movement from statistic to tragedy may be the movement from retention to abolition. Indeed, it was the execution of particular and demonstrably innocent men that led to abolition in Michigan more than 150 years ago, to abolition in England far more recently.

We have another candidate.

Cameron Todd Willingham was executed by the good people of Texas in February 2004 for the arson murder of his three children. In December of that year, the Chicago Tribune published the result of its review of the case and concluded that there was no credible evidence the fire was, in fact, arson. It could as easily have been an accident. The Innocence Project was next. It hired a panel of arson experts and concluded too, in a report issued in 2006, that Willingham was probably innocent and called on Texas to investigate. Last year, Texas agreed to investigate. And now we have the results. Here's how the Chicago Tribune's article begins.

In a withering critique, a nationally known fire scientist has told a state commission on forensics that Texas fire investigators had no basis to rule a deadly house fire was an arson -- a finding that led to the murder conviction and execution of Cameron Todd Willingham.

The finding comes in the first state-sanctioned review of an execution in Texas, home to the country's busiest death chamber. If the commission reaches the same conclusion, it could lead to the first-ever declaration by an official state body that an inmate was wrongly executed.

Indeed, the report concludes there was no evidence to determine that the December 1991 fire was even set, and it leaves open the possibility the blaze that killed three children was an accident and there was no crime at all -- the same findings found in a Chicago Tribune investigation of the case published in December 2004.

Willingham, the father of those children, was executed in February 2004. He protested his innocence to the end.

It's not that incontestable case of the dead innocent guy. But it's getting close. At some point the weight of the likely mistakes starts to weigh on you.

So now what? What will Texas do? Will it concede that it killed a likely innocent man? Will he get a posthumous pardon? Or will the state say that all these experts, including the one it chose to review the case, are blowing smoke, bury the doubts, airbrush out the warts?

I'm sorry to say that the smart money is on the smoke and the airbrush."

You can find the column at:

http://gamso-forthedefense.blogspot.com/

Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;

UP-DATE; BILL DILLON CASE; FLORIDA TODAY TRACKS DOWN CASES INVOLVING NOW DISCREDITED DOG-SCENT "EXPERT" JOHN PRESTON;

"SUBSEQUENT CONVICTIONS ONLY BOLSTERED THE DOG HANDLER'S CREDIBILITY AS AN EXPERT WITNESS, TRIAL RECORDS SHOW. MOXLEY TOLD A JUDGE IN A 1982 MURDER CASE THAT PRESTON HAD HELPED SEAL CONVICTIONS IN 10 OTHER CASES -- FIVE OF THEM MURDERS -- AND WAS RECOGNIZED AS AN "EXPERT TRACKER" BY THE 18TH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT. PRESTON ONCE TESTIFIED THAT HE HAD WORKED MORE THAN 100 CASES IN BREVARD AND MORE THAN 50 ELSEWHERE IN FLORIDA."

REPORTER JEFF SCHWEERS; FLORIDA TODAY;
PHOTO: BILL DILLON;

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Background: Bill Dillon, was 22 when he was sentenced to life in prison in 1981, for killing a man in Canova Beach on the eastern coast of the state. During the trial, Dillon was adamant that he had not committed the crime. But a man named John Preston testified in court that he and his scent-tracking German-Shepherd connected Dillon to the killer’s bloody t-shirt. Preston, who billed himself as a "scent-tracking expert", said his dog, “Harrass 2,” even tracked Dillon’s scent repeatedly in later tests. Nearly three decades later, in 2007, DNA testing proved that Dillon’s DNA did not match the DNA on the killer’s shirt. The dog was wrong. Just eight months ago, after 26 years behind bars, Bill Dillon walked out of prison a free man. Preston was exposed by a Florida judge in 1984, who became suspicious of Preston and set up his own test for Harrass 2. The dog failed terribly. CNN unearthed documents which demonstrated that Harrass 2 could not even follow a scent for one-hundred feet. The judge determined the dog could only track successfully when his handler had advance knowledge of the case. Preston and his four-legged so-called expert were discredited in 1987 - but according to CNN, "the state of Florida never reviewed cases on which he’d testified . And nobody ever told Bill Dillon – who sat in prison another 20 years before he ever knew a thing about it. It wasn’t until 2006 that he heard Preston was a fake." The Dillon case is now attracting massive media attention in response to the Florida’s Innocence Project's well publicized concerns that dozens of inmates around the country may have been wrongly convicted as a result of John Preston and his dog. The focus now shifts to Florida's response to the Innocence Project's call for an investigation of those cases. Meanwhile, CNN informs us that Preston, the dog’s handler, died last year. He was never charged with perjury or convicted of a crime."

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"By his estimate, Pennsylvania dog handler John Preston worked more than 100 criminal cases for Brevard County police and prosecutors from 1981 to 1984, earning tens of thousands of dollars to link suspects to crimes," reporter Jeff Schweers story begins, under the heading: "16 cases mired in dog handler's fraud: Evidence goaded false convictions, thwarted true ones."

"Since then, Preston has been exposed as a fraud, and Florida has freed three imprisoned men since 1987, including accused rapist Wilton Dedge in 2004 and accused murderer William Dillon this year," the story, published earlier today, continues.

"Both spent more than two decades in prison before modern DNA tests showed that they couldn't have touched the evidence to which Preston's dogs had linked them.

Which raises the questions: How many others did Preston help convict in the early 1980s? And how did bad evidence from his tracking dogs influence the outcome of cases?

Of 48 grand jury indictments in Brevard during those four years, FLORIDA TODAY found 16 murder and capital sexual assault cases in which the dog handler testified or provided key evidence. Archived trial records revealed that Preston's tainted testimony mostly helped -- but sometimes hurt -- prosecutors:

# In 13 cases, Preston's evidence linked suspects to the crime scene or to key evidence, helping prosecutors win convictions and long prison sentences. Four men remain in prison. Only an appeals court could determine whether the tainted evidence warrants a new trial or other remedy.

# In three other cases, Preston's dubious methods left prosecutors' cases vulnerable. Defense attorneys quashed Preston's testimony, leading prosecutors to drop murder charges against two suspects and a jury to acquit one accused murderer who raped and killed again.

After Dedge's 2004 release, Brevard-Seminole State Attorney Norman Wolfinger -- a public defender during the Preston era -- asked his staff to review all cases of people still imprisoned because of Preston.

"The system is set up to make it difficult to convict an innocent person. This should rarely happen," said law professor Charles Rose of Stetson University in St. Petersburg. "But DNA evidence shows what we've said all along, that people are human, and humans are fallible."

Wolfinger ordered another review after a FLORIDA TODAY report on June 21 identified others convicted with Preston's help.

In an interview Thursday, Wolfinger said he is reasonably sure that many of those convictions would have held up without Preston. "I think Preston hurt the state in many cases," Wolfinger said.

Expert witness

Brevard investigators first employed Preston in 1981 on the recommendation of an Orange County sheriff's deputy who had used him in the murder investigation of an Eatonville postmistress.

Preston died last year.

Trial records show that Preston used two methods to link suspects to a crime:

# "Man-trailing." Preston would allow his dog to sniff a piece of the suspect's clothing, then "man-trail" the scent from the crime scene to another location, usually the suspect's known residence.

# "Scent lineups." After a sample sniff, the dog would "alert to" an article of the suspect's clothing or the murder weapon out of a lineup of five similar items. Often, the other items were brand new and bore no distinct scent.

The Brevard County Sheriff's Office brought Preston in on the 1981 double-murder and sexual assault of two teenage Titusville girls. Witnesses said Mark Wayne Jones picked them up at a Cocoa Beach nightclub and heard him talk about killing them. After sniffing one victim's shoe, Preston's dog Harass II alerted to her scent in Jones' 1973 Ford Pinto.

Preston didn't testify in court, but then-Assistant State Attorney Dean Moxley mentioned the dog evidence at the hearing in which Jones pleaded guilty to murder to avoid the death penalty, court transcripts show.

Subsequent convictions only bolstered the dog handler's credibility as an expert witness, trial records show. Moxley told a judge in a 1982 murder case that Preston had helped seal convictions in 10 other cases -- five of them murders -- and was recognized as an "expert tracker" by the 18th Judicial Circuit. Preston once testified that he had worked more than 100 cases in Brevard and more than 50 elsewhere in Florida.

"Our job was to try the case as best you could using the evidence you had," Moxley, now a circuit court judge, said Friday during an interview in his Titusville chambers.

Attacking credibility

Nearly from the start, defense lawyers -- in many cases, public defenders -- tried to discredit Preston as a witness by attacking his credentials and his dogs' training and inconsistent performance. They criticized Preston for leading his dog, giving foot signals, standing near scented items in lineups in which one item was obviously different from the rest.

Phyllis Riewe, an assistant public defender in 1981, was first to move to suppress Preston's evidence, in the rape trial of Frank Berry. She said the dog naturally picked an old nightgown from a lineup that otherwise included four brand-new nightgowns and couldn't help but pick the knife bearing the victim's blood from a lineup with other knives washed clean.

The judge denied that motion. Berry was sentenced to 124 years in prison.

"You need a mountain of evidence to show this witness was not credible," said Rose, the Stetson University professor. And even so, he cautioned, "a dirty witness doesn't mean an innocent defendant."

Prosecutors have a responsibility to ensure that evidence doesn't merely conform to preconceived notions, said George "Bob" Dekle, a criminal law professor at the University of Florida and a former prosecutor for the Third Judicial Circuit of Florida.

"You have to be wary," Dekle said. "You have to make dang sure it's the right evidence."

Second thoughts

Moxley continued to employ Preston as an expert, even as other prosecutors and law enforcement officers began to suspect that Preston was a fraud, trial records show.

Sam Bardwell, who prosecuted Frank Berry, testified in another man's appeal in 1987 that he had begun to suspect Preston after the dog handler refused to participate in a "scientific experiment" Bardwell recommended.

In another case, Preston's dog failed three times to call attention to anything in a "scent lineup" before it seemed to identify the murder weapons. Then it urinated on several towels marked as evidence from the crime scene.

Preston's credibility collapsed in 1984, costing prosecutors a murder conviction. A jury acquitted defendant James Elmen, who later, in 1985, raped and killed a Jacksonville woman.

Convicted murderer Juan Ramos was acquitted on appeal in 1987.

Testifying at Ramos' appeal, ex-prosecutor Bardwell said discrediting Preston was a high point of his career. That testimony, plus detailed accounts of how Preston manipulated scent tests, helped unravel the state's case against Ramos. "You couldn't see any competency in the action of the dog," Bardwell said.

At the time, Moxley said, he had no reason to doubt Preston's credibility.

"If you believe you have evidence that is not reliable or tainted, you do not use it," Moxley said. "Today, I wouldn't use Preston."

Contact Schweers at 242-3668 or jschweers@floridatoday.com.
Additional Facts
Still in prison

Four men indicted for rape or murder in the early 1980s remain incarcerated largely in part to evidence developed by discredited dog handler John Preston.

# Gary Bennett, convicted of murdering his neighbor in 1983, based largely on evidence provided by Preston's dog. His lawyers are trying to obtain DNA evidence that would confirm or deny his involvement.
# Mark Wayne Jones pleaded guilty to a double murder and rape in 1981 to avoid the death penalty after Preston's dog placed him at the scene of the crime and detected his victims' scent in his car. Jones is doing two life terms, plus 15 years.
# Frank Berry is serving a 124-year sentence for rape after Preston's dog tied Berry to the scene.
# Gary Dirk is serving life in prison for a 1984 rape in Satellite Beach. Although Preston's testimony helped build the case, he never testified because the prosecution and defense agreed to keep him off the stand.

The story can be found at:

http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090830/NEWS01/908300322&template=printart

Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;

THE TROY DAVIS CASE: ALAN DERSHOWITZ ON WHAT HE CALLS "SCALIA'S CATHOLIC BETRAYAL." THE DAILY BEAST;

"BUT WHATEVER THE VIEW OF THE CHURCH IS ON EXECUTING THE GUILTY, SURELY IT IS AMONG THE WORST SINS, UNDER CATHOLIC TEACHING, TO KILL AN INNOCENT HUMAN BEING INTENTIONALLY. YET THAT IS PRECISELY WHAT SCALIA WOULD AUTHORIZE UNDER HIS SKEWED VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION. HOW COULD HE POSSIBLY CONSIDER THAT NOT IMMORAL UNDER CATHOLIC TEACHINGS? IF IT IS IMMORAL TO KILL AN INNOCENT FETUS, HOW COULD IT NOT BE IMMORAL TO EXECUTE AN INNOCENT PERSON?"

ALAN DERSHOWITZ; THE DAILY BEAST;

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------BackgrouBackground: (Wikipedia); The Troy Davis case concerns the case of Troy Anthony Davis, a former sports coach from the U.S. state of Georgia, who was convicted and sentenced to death in 1991 for the August 19, 1989 murder of off-duty Savannah, Georgia police officer Mark MacPhail. Throughout the trial and subsequent appeals, Davis maintained his innocence, claiming he was wrongfully convicted of the crime as a result of false identification. After the trial and first set of appeals, seven of the nine prosecution eyewitnesses who had linked Davis to the killing recanted or contradicted their original trial testimony, claiming police coercion and questionable interrogation tactics. The witness who first implicated Davis and has remained consistent, Sylvester "Redd" Coles, was initially a suspect in the crime. Coles was seen acting suspiciously the night of MacPhail's murder and has been heard boasting that he killed an off-duty police officer. There is only one witness who did not recant his testimony and is not himself a suspect in the murder, but he made an in-court identification of Davis two years after the crime.Davis opponents say Coles came back to the scene of the shooting with a female after police arrived. Davis changed clothes (even asking Coles for a shirt later) and fled to Atlanta with his sister. Davis has repeatedly asked the courts to examine the new exculpatory evidence, but so far has not been successful in persuading a majority of judges to grant him a new trial or conduct a hearing in which the recanting eyewitnesses could be cross-examined to determine the credibility of Davis’ innocence claims. In October 2008, Davis filed a second Habeas petition in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on the grounds that it was the first time Davis was presenting a free-standing innocence claim and that no court has yet held an evidentiary hearing on the exculpatory evidence of recanted testimony. On 16 April 2009 the three-judge panel denied Davis' petition on procedural grounds by a 2-1 majority. Amnesty International has strongly condemned the refusal of U.S. courts to examine the innocence evidence, and has organized rallies and letter-writing campaigns to persuade the Georgia and Federal courts to grant Davis a new trial or an evidentiary hearing. Many prominent politicians and leaders, including President Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI, Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Presidential candidate Bob Barr, and former FBI Director and judge William S. Sessions have called upon the courts to grant Davis a new trial or evidentiary hearing. On 17 August 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court, over the dissenting votes of two justices, ordered a federal district court in Georgia to consider and rule on whether new evidence "that could not have been obtained at the time of trial clearly establishes [Davis'] innocence."

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Alan Dershowitz articulates his views on what he labels "Scalia's Catholic Betrayal" in a commentary which appeared in "The Daily Beast."

Wikopedia tells us that: "The Daily Beast is a news reporting and opinion website published by Tina Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. About one-third of its content is original, while the rest is aggregated links to articles written by other news outlets...The name of the site is derived from that of the fictional newspaper in Evelyn Waugh's novel Scoop."

(Professor Alan M. Dershowitz is described by the Daily Beast as:"A Brooklyn native who has been called “the nation’s most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer” and one of its “most distinguished defenders of individual rights.” He is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Professor Dershowitz is the author of 27 fiction and nonfiction works.")

A sub-heading to the commentary tells us: "The Supreme Court justice’s shocking remarks about capital punishment are not just a distortion of the Constitution, says Alan Dershowitz, they’re also an outrage against his church."

"I never thought I would live to see the day when a justice of the Supreme Court would publish the following words: “This court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is ‘actually’ innocent. Quite to the contrary, we have repeatedly left that question unresolved, while expressing considerable doubt that any claim based on alleged ‘actual innocence’ is constitutionally cognizable," the commentary, begins, under the heading, "Scalia's Catholic Betrayal."

"Yet these words appeared in a dissenting opinion issued by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas on Monday," it continues.

"Let us be clear precisely what this means. If a defendant were convicted, after a constitutionally unflawed trial, of murdering his wife, and then came to the Supreme Court with his very much alive wife at his side, and sought a new trial based on newly discovered evidence (namely that his wife was alive), these two justices would tell him, in effect: “Look, your wife may be alive as a matter of fact, but as a matter of constitutional law, she’s dead, and as for you, Mr. Innocent Defendant, you’re dead, too, since there is no constitutional right not to be executed merely because you’re innocent.”

• Paul Campos: Scalia's Death Row Lunacy It would be shocking enough for any justice of the Supreme Court to issue such a truly outrageous opinion, but it is particularly indefensible for Justices Scalia and Thomas, both of whom claim to be practicing Catholics, bound by the teaching of their church, to do moral justice. Justice Scalia has famously written, in the May 2002 issue of the conservative journal First Things, that if the Constitution compelled him to do something that was absolutely prohibited by mandatory Catholic rules, he would have no choice but to resign from the Supreme Court.

Unlike President Kennedy, who pledged to place his obligation to the Constitution above his commitment to his church, Scalia has insisted that in his view, “The choice for the judge who believes the death penalty to be immoral [according to the teachings of the Catholic Church] is resignation.” He put his point in “blunt terms”: “I could not take part in that process [of authorizing an execution] if I believed what was being done to be immoral.” He continued: “It is a matter of great consequence to me, therefore, whether the death penalty is morally acceptable. As a Roman Catholic—and being unable to jump out of my skin—I cannot discuss that issue without reference to Christian tradition and the church’s Magisterium.”

Surely it is among the worst sins, under Catholic teaching, to kill an innocent human being intentionally. Yet that is precisely what Scalia would authorize under his skewed view of the United States Constitution.

After reviewing the teachings of the church, he concluded that there is no conflict between his judicial role in affirming death-penalty sentences and the strict teachings of the Catholic Church, which counsel against the use of capital punishment but permit this extreme sanction in extraordinary cases, especially when there is no reasonable alternative. This is the way he put it:

“So I have given this new position thoughtful and careful consideration—and I disagree. That is not to say I favor the death penalty (I am judicially and judiciously neutral on that point); it is only to say that I do not find the death penalty immoral. I am happy to have reached that conclusion, because I like my job, and would rather not resign. And I am happy because I do not think it would be a good thing if American Catholics running for legislative office had to oppose the death penalty (most of them would not be elected); if American Catholics running for governor had to promise commutation of all death sentences (most of them would never reach the governor’s mansion); if American Catholics were ineligible to go on the bench in all jurisdictions imposing the death penalty; or if American Catholics were subject to recusal when called for jury duty in capital cases.”

But whatever the view of the church is on executing the guilty, surely it is among the worst sins, under Catholic teaching, to kill an innocent human being intentionally. Yet that is precisely what Scalia would authorize under his skewed view of the United States Constitution. How could he possibly consider that not immoral under Catholic teachings? If it is immoral to kill an innocent fetus, how could it not be immoral to execute an innocent person?

Ordinarily I would not include a justice's religious views in a criticism of a judicial opinion, but with regard to capital punishment, it is Justice Scalia who has introduced the religious dimension. I am simply trying to hold him to his own published standards.

I am not a Catholic, yet I teach principles of Catholic morality in my Harvard Law School freshman seminar, “Where Does Your Morality Come From?” I hereby challenge Justice Scalia to a debate on whether Catholic doctrine permits the execution of a factually innocent person who has been tried, without constitutional flaw, but whose innocence is clearly established by new and indisputable evidence. Justice Scalia is always willing to debate issues involving religious teachings. He has done so, for example, with the great Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, and with others as well. He also has debated me at the Harvard Law School. Although I am neither a rabbi nor a priest, I am confident that I am right and he is wrong under Catholic Doctrine. Perhaps it takes chutzpah to challenge a practicing Catholic on the teachings of his own faith, but that is a quality we share.

I invite him to participate in the debate at Harvard Law School, at Georgetown Law School, or anywhere else of his choosing. The stakes are high, because if he loses—if it is clear that his constitutional views permitting the execution of factually innocent defendants are inconsistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church—then, pursuant to his own published writings, he would have no choice but to conform his constitutional views to the teachings of the Catholic Church or to resign from the Supreme Court."

The commentary can be found at:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-08-18/scalias-catholic-betrayal/full/

Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;

TROY DAVIS CASE; NEW YORK TIMES EXPRESSES RELIEF OVER SUPREME COURT DECISION; DECRIES "SHOCKING" SCALIA AND THOMAS DISSENTS;

"FOR THE STATE TO PUT A PERSON TO DEATH IS, IN OUR OPINION, ALWAYS WRONG. TO DO SO IN THE FACE OF CLEAR EVIDENCE OF INNOCENCE IS BARBARIC."

EDITORIAL: NEW YORK TIMES;

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Background: (Wikipedia); The Troy Davis case concerns the case of Troy Anthony Davis, a former sports coach from the U.S. state of Georgia, who was convicted and sentenced to death in 1991 for the August 19, 1989 murder of off-duty Savannah, Georgia police officer Mark MacPhail. Throughout the trial and subsequent appeals, Davis maintained his innocence, claiming he was wrongfully convicted of the crime as a result of false identification. After the trial and first set of appeals, seven of the nine prosecution eyewitnesses who had linked Davis to the killing recanted or contradicted their original trial testimony, claiming police coercion and questionable interrogation tactics. The witness who first implicated Davis and has remained consistent, Sylvester "Redd" Coles, was initially a suspect in the crime. Coles was seen acting suspiciously the night of MacPhail's murder and has been heard boasting that he killed an off-duty police officer. There is only one witness who did not recant his testimony and is not himself a suspect in the murder, but he made an in-court identification of Davis two years after the crime.Davis opponents say Coles came back to the scene of the shooting with a female after police arrived. Davis changed clothes (even asking Coles for a shirt later) and fled to Atlanta with his sister. Davis has repeatedly asked the courts to examine the new exculpatory evidence, but so far has not been successful in persuading a majority of judges to grant him a new trial or conduct a hearing in which the recanting eyewitnesses could be cross-examined to determine the credibility of Davis’ innocence claims. In October 2008, Davis filed a second Habeas petition in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on the grounds that it was the first time Davis was presenting a free-standing innocence claim and that no court has yet held an evidentiary hearing on the exculpatory evidence of recanted testimony. On 16 April 2009 the three-judge panel denied Davis' petition on procedural grounds by a 2-1 majority. Amnesty International has strongly condemned the refusal of U.S. courts to examine the innocence evidence, and has organized rallies and letter-writing campaigns to persuade the Georgia and Federal courts to grant Davis a new trial or an evidentiary hearing. Many prominent politicians and leaders, including President Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI, Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Presidential candidate Bob Barr, and former FBI Director and judge William S. Sessions have called upon the courts to grant Davis a new trial or evidentiary hearing. On 17 August 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court, over the dissenting votes of two justices, ordered a federal district court in Georgia to consider and rule on whether new evidence "that could not have been obtained at the time of trial clearly establishes [Davis'] innocence."

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"We are relieved that the Supreme Court has ordered a lower court to reconsider the conviction of a Georgia death row inmate who may be innocent," the August 18, 2009, editorial begins, under the heading, "The Court's Duty."

"In a shocking dissent, Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dismissed the idea that the courts have a duty to ensure that they are not putting an innocent man to death," the editorial continues.

"We hope that the Georgia court will see that justice is done. And that the other justices will make clear in future cases that the Constitution prohibits the execution of death row inmates who can produce convincing evidence that they are innocent.

Troy Davis was convicted of the 1989 murder of an off-duty Savannah police officer. Seven key witnesses have since recanted, and several people have charged that the main prosecution witness was the shooter. Rather than arguing that there were procedural flaws in his trial, Mr. Davis is making the more basic claim that he is innocent and that new evidence proves it.

The Supreme Court ordered a federal district court to “receive testimony and make findings of fact” about whether the new evidence clearly establishes that Mr. Davis is not guilty. Such a hearing is the best vehicle for getting at the truth — and for possibly rescuing an innocent man. There is no excuse for not having one.

In their extraordinarily cold dissent, Justices Scalia and Thomas argued that the Supreme Court has never held that the Constitution prohibits executing an inmate who had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a court that he is actually innocent. To the contrary, they argued that a federal law — the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 — prevents the courts from intervening on behalf of a death row inmate who claims to have proof of his own innocence.

This reading of the law is incorrect, as Justice John Paul Stevens ably explained in a separate opinion. It is also unconscionable. For the state to put a person to death is, in our opinion, always wrong. To do so in the face of clear evidence of innocence is barbaric."

The editorial can be found at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/opinion/19wed3.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;

TROY DAVIS CASE: L.A. TIMES SEES SUPREME COURT AS AT LAST MAKING A RULING THAT MAY HELP FREE THE WRONGFULLY CONVICTED;

"IT'S HARD TO IMAGINE A LEGAL RIGHT MORE FUNDAMENTAL THAN THE OPPORTUNITY TO PROVE ONE'S INNOCENCE, ESPECIALLY WHEN THE ALTERNATIVE IS EXECUTION. IF THE REPRIEVE FOR DAVIS INDICATES THE COURT'S ACCEPTANCE OF THAT PRINCIPLE, HE IS NOT THE ONLY WINNER IN THIS CASE."

EDITORIAL: THE LOS ANGELES TIMES;

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Background: (Wikipedia); The Troy Davis case concerns the case of Troy Anthony Davis, a former sports coach from the U.S. state of Georgia, who was convicted and sentenced to death in 1991 for the August 19, 1989 murder of off-duty Savannah, Georgia police officer Mark MacPhail. Throughout the trial and subsequent appeals, Davis maintained his innocence, claiming he was wrongfully convicted of the crime as a result of false identification. After the trial and first set of appeals, seven of the nine prosecution eyewitnesses who had linked Davis to the killing recanted or contradicted their original trial testimony, claiming police coercion and questionable interrogation tactics. The witness who first implicated Davis and has remained consistent, Sylvester "Redd" Coles, was initially a suspect in the crime. Coles was seen acting suspiciously the night of MacPhail's murder and has been heard boasting that he killed an off-duty police officer. There is only one witness who did not recant his testimony and is not himself a suspect in the murder, but he made an in-court identification of Davis two years after the crime.Davis opponents say Coles came back to the scene of the shooting with a female after police arrived. Davis changed clothes (even asking Coles for a shirt later) and fled to Atlanta with his sister. Davis has repeatedly asked the courts to examine the new exculpatory evidence, but so far has not been successful in persuading a majority of judges to grant him a new trial or conduct a hearing in which the recanting eyewitnesses could be cross-examined to determine the credibility of Davis’ innocence claims. In October 2008, Davis filed a second Habeas petition in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on the grounds that it was the first time Davis was presenting a free-standing innocence claim and that no court has yet held an evidentiary hearing on the exculpatory evidence of recanted testimony. On 16 April 2009 the three-judge panel denied Davis' petition on procedural grounds by a 2-1 majority. Amnesty International has strongly condemned the refusal of U.S. courts to examine the innocence evidence, and has organized rallies and letter-writing campaigns to persuade the Georgia and Federal courts to grant Davis a new trial or an evidentiary hearing. Many prominent politicians and leaders, including President Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI, Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Presidential candidate Bob Barr, and former FBI Director and judge William S. Sessions have called upon the courts to grant Davis a new trial or evidentiary hearing. On 17 August 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court, over the dissenting votes of two justices, ordered a federal district court in Georgia to consider and rule on whether new evidence "that could not have been obtained at the time of trial clearly establishes [Davis'] innocence."

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The Los Angeles times editorial, published Tuesday, ran under the heading, "Innocent and in jail: The Supreme Court has at last made a ruling that may help free the wrongfully convicted."

"Whatever their views about capital punishment, most Americans probably assume that a convicted defendant will be released from prison if he can prove that he didn't commit the crime," the editorial begins.

"In fact, the Supreme Court has stopped short of endorsing what lawyers call the "actual innocence" doctrine. But an unexpected order in a Georgia death penalty case may indicate that the justices are coming around to a common-sense view about the due process of law," it continues.

"Last week, they ordered a federal court in Georgia to reconsider the case of death row inmate Troy Anthony Davis, convicted of murdering an off-duty police officer 18 years ago. Since then, seven prosecution witnesses have recanted their testimony, and dignitaries including former President Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Pope Benedict XVI have pleaded for clemency, with the pope's representative providing Georgia officials with a detailed critique of the evidence used to convict Davis.

A new hearing for Davis is welcome as a matter of individual justice, though it raises the question of whether similarly wronged prisoners will be denied relief because they don't have the support of prelates, politicians and movie stars. But the broader significance is that the court said a lower court should "receive testimony and make findings of fact as to whether evidence that could not have been obtained at the time of trial clearly establishes petitioner's innocence."

In dissenting from the order, Justice Antonin Scalia (joined by Justice Clarence Thomas) complained that the court "has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is 'actually' innocent." The dissenters are right about the history of the actual innocence doctrine, which is one reason the ruling in favor of Davis is so surprising.

The order confounded expectations in two other ways. As recently as October 2008, the justices declined, with no explanation, to hear an appeal by Davis. In June, the court refused to holdthat a convicted defendant in an Alaska case had a right to a DNA test that might clear him. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. noted that 46 states already provide such access, but he also cavalierly contended that a state's refusal to afford a prisoner DNA testing didn't offend "some principle of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental."

It's hard to imagine a legal right more fundamental than the opportunity to prove one's innocence, especially when the alternative is execution. If the reprieve for Davis indicates the court's acceptance of that principle, he is not the only winner in this case."

See the editorial at:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-innocence25-2009aug25,0,7985126.story

Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;

UP-DATE; THE TROY DAVIS CASE; FEDERAL JUDGE SETS DEADLINES FOR UP-COMING HEARINGS; ATLANTA NEWS REPORTS;

Background: (Wikipedia); The Troy Davis case concerns the case of Troy Anthony Davis, a former sports coach from the U.S. state of Georgia, who was convicted and sentenced to death in 1991 for the August 19, 1989 murder of off-duty Savannah, Georgia police officer Mark MacPhail. Throughout the trial and subsequent appeals, Davis maintained his innocence, claiming he was wrongfully convicted of the crime as a result of false identification. After the trial and first set of appeals, seven of the nine prosecution eyewitnesses who had linked Davis to the killing recanted or contradicted their original trial testimony, claiming police coercion and questionable interrogation tactics. The witness who first implicated Davis and has remained consistent, Sylvester "Redd" Coles, was initially a suspect in the crime. Coles was seen acting suspiciously the night of MacPhail's murder and has been heard boasting that he killed an off-duty police officer. There is only one witness who did not recant his testimony and is not himself a suspect in the murder, but he made an in-court identification of Davis two years after the crime.Davis opponents say Coles came back to the scene of the shooting with a female after police arrived. Davis changed clothes (even asking Coles for a shirt later) and fled to Atlanta with his sister. Davis has repeatedly asked the courts to examine the new exculpatory evidence, but so far has not been successful in persuading a majority of judges to grant him a new trial or conduct a hearing in which the recanting eyewitnesses could be cross-examined to determine the credibility of Davis’ innocence claims. In October 2008, Davis filed a second Habeas petition in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on the grounds that it was the first time Davis was presenting a free-standing innocence claim and that no court has yet held an evidentiary hearing on the exculpatory evidence of recanted testimony. On 16 April 2009 the three-judge panel denied Davis' petition on procedural grounds by a 2-1 majority. Amnesty International has strongly condemned the refusal of U.S. courts to examine the innocence evidence, and has organized rallies and letter-writing campaigns to persuade the Georgia and Federal courts to grant Davis a new trial or an evidentiary hearing. Many prominent politicians and leaders, including President Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI, Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Presidential candidate Bob Barr, and former FBI Director and judge William S. Sessions have called upon the courts to grant Davis a new trial or evidentiary hearing. On 17 August 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court, over the dissenting votes of two justices, ordered a federal district court in Georgia to consider and rule on whether new evidence "that could not have been obtained at the time of trial clearly establishes [Davis'] innocence."

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Atlanta News reports that a federal judge has set deadlines for coming hearings in the Troy Davis case.

"SAVANNAH, Ga. -- Deadlines that were set by a federal judge in the case of Troy Davis indicate it could be several months before the Georgia death row inmate gets a court hearing on his claims of innocence," the story, published earlier today, begins.

"U.S. District Judge William T. Moore Jr. has given Georgia's attorney general until Oct. 10 to file a written response to an appeal by Davis' lawyers, who said new evidence proves he did not kill Savannah police officer Mark MacPhail in 1989," the story continues.

"The judge's order that was filed Wednesday said Davis' attorneys will have an additional 45 days to respond to the state's written arguments -- likely pushing the case into late November."

The story can be found at:

http://www.cbsatlanta.com/news/20582724/detail.html

Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;

TROY DAVIS CASE: ERROL LOUIS COLUMN TIES DAVIS CASE WITH PROCEEDINGS AGAINST JUDGE SHARON KELLER AS "GOOD CASE FOR KILLING DEATH PENALTY."

"MARCHES, RALLIES, MEDIA COVERAGE AND AN ACTIVE INTERNATIONAL MOVEMENT AND APPEALS FROM WELL-KNOWN PEOPLE - INCLUDING FORMER FBI DIRECTOR WILLIAMS SESSIONS, EX-REP. BOB BARR (R-GA.), DESMOND TUTU AND POPE BENEDICT - TO GET THE HIGH COURT TO ACT.

THE SUPREME COURT RULING SIGNALS THAT ACTUAL INNOCENCE COUNTS FOR SOMETHING IN A LAND WHERE SO MANY SCREAM FOR BLOOD."

COLUMNIST ERROL LOUIS; DAILY NEWS:

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Background: (Wikipedia); The Troy Davis case concerns the case of Troy Anthony Davis, a former sports coach from the U.S. state of Georgia, who was convicted and sentenced to death in 1991 for the August 19, 1989 murder of off-duty Savannah, Georgia police officer Mark MacPhail. Throughout the trial and subsequent appeals, Davis maintained his innocence, claiming he was wrongfully convicted of the crime as a result of false identification. After the trial and first set of appeals, seven of the nine prosecution eyewitnesses who had linked Davis to the killing recanted or contradicted their original trial testimony, claiming police coercion and questionable interrogation tactics. The witness who first implicated Davis and has remained consistent, Sylvester "Redd" Coles, was initially a suspect in the crime. Coles was seen acting suspiciously the night of MacPhail's murder and has been heard boasting that he killed an off-duty police officer. There is only one witness who did not recant his testimony and is not himself a suspect in the murder, but he made an in-court identification of Davis two years after the crime.Davis opponents say Coles came back to the scene of the shooting with a female after police arrived. Davis changed clothes (even asking Coles for a shirt later) and fled to Atlanta with his sister. Davis has repeatedly asked the courts to examine the new exculpatory evidence, but so far has not been successful in persuading a majority of judges to grant him a new trial or conduct a hearing in which the recanting eyewitnesses could be cross-examined to determine the credibility of Davis’ innocence claims. In October 2008, Davis filed a second Habeas petition in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on the grounds that it was the first time Davis was presenting a free-standing innocence claim and that no court has yet held an evidentiary hearing on the exculpatory evidence of recanted testimony. On 16 April 2009 the three-judge panel denied Davis' petition on procedural grounds by a 2-1 majority. Amnesty International has strongly condemned the refusal of U.S. courts to examine the innocence evidence, and has organized rallies and letter-writing campaigns to persuade the Georgia and Federal courts to grant Davis a new trial or an evidentiary hearing. Many prominent politicians and leaders, including President Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI, Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Presidential candidate Bob Barr, and former FBI Director and judge William S. Sessions have called upon the courts to grant Davis a new trial or evidentiary hearing. On 17 August 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court, over the dissenting votes of two justices, ordered a federal district court in Georgia to consider and rule on whether new evidence "that could not have been obtained at the time of trial clearly establishes [Davis'] innocence."

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"Opponents of the death penalty have reason for hope this week. Two high-profile cases are exposing the sick, barbaric folly of execution in America," Errol Louis's astute August 20, 2009, column begins, under the heading, "Here's a good case for killing the death penalty."

"When the U.S. resumed executions in 1977, only 16 nations had abolished the death penalty; the number has since grown to 92. Five nations now carry out more than 90% of the world's executions: Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, China - and the United States," the column continues;

"We're in pretty grim company.

But this week, America took a step toward evolving in the direction of the civilized world.

In Georgia, a man on Death Row got an extremely rare ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court.

And in Texas, a high-ranking judge is herself on trial - prosecuted for misconduct after callously refusing to hear the eleventh-hour appeal of a prisoner who was about to be executed.

The latest development in the Georgia case of Troy Anthony Davis is awe-inspiring.

For the first time in 50 years, the justices ordered a federal court to reopen a state murder case - even after a long line of appeals - and hear newly discovered evidence that might exonerate Davis.

As I've written in columns since 2007, the evidence of Davis' innocence is overwhelming. He was convicted in 1991 of the point-blank shooting of a Savannah police officer in a case with scant evidence: There was no murder weapon found, no confession, no fingerprints or other physical evidence.

Davis was sent to Death Row on the strength of nine witnesses. Seven have since recanted in sworn statements, with many claiming police coercion. An eighth witness first told cops he didn't know who the killer was, then "remembered" it was Davis two years later.

And the ninth witness, who originally pointed the finger at Davis, may be the real killer. Three new witnesses now say he was the shooter. (Details about the case are at troyanthonydavis.org.)

It took marches, rallies, media coverage and an active international movement and appeals from well-known people - including former FBI Director Williams Sessions, ex-Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.), Desmond Tutu and Pope Benedict - to get the high court to act.

The Supreme Court ruling signals that actual innocence counts for something in a land where so many scream for blood.

Another encouraging scene is unfolding in Texas, where Sharon Keller, presiding judge of the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals, yesterday took the witness stand in her own defense.

Keller has been charged with misconduct by the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct and could be kicked off the bench for her actions on the night in 2007 that the state executed Michael Wayne Richard, a rapist and murderer.

On the day Richard was scheduled to be killed, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a halt to executions in Kentucky based on a claim that lethal injections might be painful and therefore an unconstitutionally cruel form of punishment.

Richard's lawyers, frantically attempting to stay his execution based on the ruling in the Kentucky case, called Keller's aides shortly before the court's closing time, begging them to keep the court open for 15 to 30 minutes - long enough to allow papers to be filed.

At 4:45 p.m., the request was passed to Keller, who presides over the very last stop for criminal defendants in the Lone Star State.

"We close at 5," she said. Richard was executed at 8:23 that evening. And on the stand yesterday, Keller said that, if faced with the same situation, she'd slam shut the doors of the courthouse again.

That stiff-necked indifference to fairness and justice make Keller - "Killer Keller" to her critics - a poster child, along with Davis, for why we must end the death penalty.


The column can be found at:

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/08/20/2009-08-20_a_case_for_killing_the_death_penalty.html

Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;