In my mid-twenties, I was
mugged while driving cab in Rochester, New York.
Next morning, the RPD called
me downtown to view a line-up
Although I could not
positively identify anyone in that line-up, Chief Detective Fantigrossi leaned
on me -- figuratively and literally - to positively identify one particular
fellow who bore a general resemblance to my assailant.
When I told Fantigrossi that
"I could never identify him under oath," he replied (and this is
close to verbatim): "Oh, sure you can!"
Nearly ten years earlier, my
Dad was a member of the longest-sitting Grand Jury in Rochester history. It was
his jury's duty to rule on all cases arising from the Rochester Race Riots that
began on July 24, 1964.
My father was a very bright,
judicious man who took pains to weigh all sides of a story.
One evening, after a full day with the Grand Jury, Dad made this exasperated comment over dinner: "How can
eye witnesses, with no apparent ax to grind, give antithetical testimony to the
same event? It happens all the time!"
We now know from academic
study that eye witnesses to staged robberies will positively identify the wrong
perpetrator 30% of the time.
Whether or not Carlos de Luna
was guilty of the Texas murder discussed in the following audio file, we now
know that there was a superabundance of evidence, which - if presented at trial
- would have introduced massive amounts of reasonable doubt.
The NPR blurb: "Columbia Law
School professor James Liebman organized his students to re-investigate a
murder case which led to the execution of Carlos De Luna. They found evidence that they believe proves that
the state of Texas executed the wrong man." http://thestory.org/archive/The_Story_53012.mp3/view
***
I also recommend the
following New Yorker article, "Trial by Fire," which probes the case of Cameron Todd Willingham who was executed for killing his two children by arson. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann
No comments:
Post a Comment