This is long but bear with me.
When I was younger, I believed in the rightness of the death penalty. I could have pulled the switch.
I no longer believe that our criminal justice system is capable of sorting the guilty from the innocent to the level of certainty that justifies killing those convicted of a capital crime. Here is the most recent example, from the Associated Press. This man was not sentenced to death but many others have been after being convicted of similar offenses on similar evidence. As you read this, ask yourself where were you 19 years ago and what have you been able to do with your life since then. I have italicized the more atrocious aspects of this story:
NEW YORK (AP) -- Barry Gibbs was a forgotten man convicted of a forgotten crime he said he never committed: the 1986 slaying of a prostitute in Brooklyn.
It took a more memorable case -- the arrest earlier this year of a former detective on charges he doubled as a mob hit man -- for authorities to finally listen to Gibbs. On Thursday, a judge threw out Gibbs' 1988 murder conviction and released him based on new evidence that the same detective coerced a witness into identifying him as the killer.
"I knew I was innocent," Gibbs, 57, said at a crowded news conference at his lawyers' office. "I just had to make people believe." [Nineteen years ago he was 38 years old.]
The sudden release of Gibbs after 19 years behind bars was the latest twist in the case of former detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, dubbed the "Mafia cops" by tabloids. Both were arrested in Las Vegas in March on federal charges alleging they moonlighted as professional hit men in the 1980s and 1990s, settling scores against rivals of a Lucchese crime family underboss for tens of thousands of dollars.
Eppolito also was the lead investigator in the slaying of the prostitute. He located a witness who testified at a trial that, while jogging, he had seen Gibbs dump the body of the strangled victim near a bridge.
Gibbs, at the time a postal worker who was struggling with a drug problem, admitted he once had an "encounter" with the woman but said he never harmed her. Still, he was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years to life in prison.
Following Eppolito's arrest, Gibbs' lawyers urged federal agents and prosecutors to re-examine his case. The discovery of an old homicide file on the prostitute's killing in the former detective's Las Vegas home raised suspicions further.
Under recent questioning by the FBI, the witness recanted, claiming Eppolito had bribed and intimidated him into identifying Gibbs, authorities said.
Gibbs said he was looking forward to feasting on a lobster tail stuffed with crab meat before worrying about how he'll survive on the outside.
"I was a legitimate guy," he said, "and now I have nothing."
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2 comments:
Hey, thanks for visiting my blog.
I took the "gay marriage" list from http://amiedotcom.blogspot.com/
but he got it from a friend via email, who got it from a friend who got it from a friend. I just put that guy's link on my site. lol
Cessna, good question. The legal system is inherently slow despite the "speedy trial" rule. The appellate courts are even slower. Then, in Florida as in most states, carrying out the death sentence requires the governor's signature on a death warrant. We've had at least one governor who did not sign a death warrant during his time in office. Then he would be followed by a "law and order" governor who wants to catch up on the backlog. Lawyers who specialize in capital crimes often attempt to get the sentence overturned or reduced to life in prison. The whole process is DELIBERATELY slow. I wouldn't want to live in a country where it is not slow by design.
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