Free at Last, Free at Last

by Katherine Scardino

Is it my imagination, or are we reading too many stories about citizens in this country spending many years of their lives locked in a box in prison and then, decades later, some magic occurs and we learn the person is innocent?

In March a year ago, I wrote an article for Women in Crime Ink about Henry Skinner, who had been requesting DNA testing on the evidence in his case ever since his conviction in 1994. In March, there was an uproar over whether the evidence in his case should be subjected to DNA testing. My position last March, and today, is why in the hell not? What would it hurt? The cost of the lab testing is relatively small compared to the cost of years of feeding, clothing and guarding a prisoner -- or executing him. Even worse is the moral cost of execution if we were to later learn Mr. Skinner is indeed innocent.

The Supreme Court will listen to arguments in Skinner’s case within the next few months to determine whether to open a new avenue for convicts' access to evidence for DNA testing. But for Mr. Skinner, his time is up. This is his last chance; for him, it's life or death. We'll watch the Supreme Court on this case. Its decision could define the basic fairness of the law in the United States, or the lack of it.

This week, we released another innocent man who had spent 19 years in a Texas prison on a 1990 rape conviction. Allen Porter (right) walked out into the fresh air after a hearing in state court in which his nephew, Jimmy Hatton (currently serving time for this crime), and Perry Harrison (never charged in the crime) came forward to say that Mr. Porter was not a party to the crime, that they were the guilty ones. Where have they been for the last 19 years? Did they forget he was locked up in prison? What took them so long?

The ultimate problem is that once again, Texas screwed up. How many times does this have to happen before someone does something? My imagination can't encompass the emotion of hearing a cell door slam shut behind me, or of looking around the 10-foot-square box that would be my home for most of the rest of my life, let alone of knowing that I had not committed the crime for which I was convicted. I'd know that I'd told my lawyer -- over and over -- that I wasn't guilty. I told the prosecutor, the judge and jury. No one listened. No one believed me.

So here I am, alone and scared, wondering how I am going to convince just one person that I am innocent. All anyone has to do is test the evidence for DNA. With competent, efficient lab work, I could be exonerated. But my lawyer did not ask for the DNA testing. I don't understand why not. Where do I go from here?

Amazingly, this is happening more and more often, not less. Here’s a scary statistic: Since 1973, 138 people have been released from Death Rows across the United States after new evidence showed their legal, if not actual, innocence. Does that number get your attention? If all of us had done nothing on these 138 cases, these 138 people would now be dead. This has got to stop. We now have the technology to prove innocence in many cases.

Why is there ever an issue about DNA testing? Why would the prosecutor in every jurisdiction not test all the evidence? The evidence in every criminal case is in the hands and control of the State. Of course, the defense lawyer can request a DNA test by the State, or even get one done by their own forensics experts. But ultimately, the evidence is in the control of the State prosecution and the police. If justice is our goal, then test the damn evidence!

To give credit where it is due, the Harris County District Attorney's Office finally started an investigation in Mr. Porter’s case. They gave the case to a star in their office. Assistant District Attorney Baldwin Chin did something that seems to be a novelty nowadays -- investigate. Through his investigation, Mr. Chin learned that Mr. Porter may be an innocent man.

In an article this week, our elected district attorney said her office has a “sworn mission to serve justice.” She said “The integrity of the criminal justice system means everything. Wrongful convictions are a triple tragedy -- for the accused, for the victim and for society. The true criminal is free to continue to commit offenses.”

Well, Ms. District Attorney, I have a solution for permanently avoiding these embarrassing moments. Tell every one of your assistant DA’s that you will now require that all the evidence be DNA-tested. Period. Wouldn’t that put an end to the seemingly endless stream of stories about having to release, of all things, an innocent person from prison?

Tweet

What's Wrong With Being Right?

by Katherine Scardino

Hank Skinner is about to die. He is a convicted capital murderer with an execution date of March 24, 2010. However, there's a problem. Hank Skinner has continuously said that he is an innocent man. We don't know that he's an innocent man. But there's one way to determine whether he's telling the truth. For fifteen years, Hank Skinner has asked for a DNA analysis of the evidence in his murder trial. He was convicted of bludgeoning to death his live-in girlfriend, Twila Busby, and stabbing to death her two mentally impaired sons, Randy Busby and Elwin Caler. The murders occurred on December 31, 1993. Skinner was convicted of the murders on March 18, 1994, and sentenced to death on March 23, 1995.

Skinner has filed numerous appeals. This article isn't about whether Hank Skinner is guilty or innocent. It's about whether his request for DNA testing should be granted. Regardless of the facts of any case, if there's a test that would resolve the issues, wouldn't most people say: Go ahead and do it? Let’s settle this issue once and for all. If Hank Skinner’s DNA is linked to evidence used to prove his guilt, then by all means, let’s show it. If Hank Skinner’s DNA isn't on that evidence, then let’s show that also. Who would object to that? Well, let’s answer that. Maybe the prosecutor, who wouldn't want it proven that he got the whole case wrong? The judge, who wouldn't want to be reversed -- and revealed as a total idiot whose every ruling and the theory of the case presented by the State were totally and provably wrong. Just wrong. No one wants to be proven wrong.

So what's the issue? It's that Hank Skinner has asked for a DNA analysis of the untested evidence ever since his 1994 trial, and has been refused every step of the way. My question is this: If a simple DNA analysis would prove this man innocent, or even throw some doubt on his guilt, what in holy hell is wrong with doing that?

I'm not saying Hank Skinner is innocent. I have no idea about whether he is actually innocent or guilty as sin. My question is simply -- if this man’s culpability can be shown by a simple test, why in the world would the State be opposed to it? He is about to die, for God’s sake. What would they be afraid of? Are we so into this idea of finality that we forget what is really fair? The State argues that finality is the goal, and the courts have ruled. But DNA testing is in the hands of the State. They could have answered this question years ago.

Hank Skinner has been accused and convicted of horrible crimes. Again, I reiterate, I have no knowledge whether Skinner is guilty or innocent. I just know that when a person proclaims his innocence, over and over to every appellate court possible, and the State refuses to do the simple DNA testing that would resolve several layers of appellate review, I get suspicious. Why the opposition? The DNA would show one way or the other, right?

It reminds me of the Timothy Cole case. Timothy Cole was convicted of the 1985 rape of a Texas Tech student and  sentenced to 25 years in prison. His conviction was based in part on the victim’s identification of him as her attacker, in part on what a judge later called faulty police work and a questionable suspect lineup. The victim later fought to help clear Cole’s name. Cole died in prison in 1999, at age 39, after an asthma attack sent him into cardiac arrest. Cole was cleared by DNA in 2009, posthumously exonerating him, after repeated confessions by another man in 2008.

When Gov. Rick Perry pardoned Timothy Cole, it ended the Cole family’s long battle to clear Timothy’s name. But it did something else. It reminded all of us that Timothy Cole was wrongfully convicted of rape two decades ago, and DNA would have proved his innocence -- if someone had had the cajones to stand up and say we should give this man have the test he was asking for. DNA would have disposed of this case years ago. Why did we take so long? As I see it, there is only one answer. Pride. The prosecutor. The judge. The defense lawyer. What was the delay? If there is an iota of reason why a defendant should have DNA testing of any piece of evidence, why in the world would anyone object?

But what about the case of Cameron Todd Willingham? He was executed in 2004 for arson in a fire that killed his children. At his trial, forensic experts for the State said the fire was set intentionally. But later, other experts in forensic evidence involving arson found the forensic science used in the case was invalid and that the analysts should have known that it was faulty at the time of their testimony. Simply put, Texas executed an innocent man.

About four years ago, the Texas Innocence Project, of which I can proudly say that I am a board member, asked the Texas Forensic Science Commission to review the Willingham case and similar cases. The conclusion of the Texas Innocence Project is that there are likely other cases in Texas like those of Timothy Cole, Cameron Todd Willingham, and maybe Hank Skinner. Science proved Timothy Cole’s innocence 10 years too late. It threw Cameron Todd Willingham’s case into doubt several years too late. And it will soon be too late for science to prove whether Hank Skinner is an innocent man.

If an inmate says “I am innocent and I can prove it,” what's wrong with letting him prove or disprove his innocence with DNA testing? It seems silly to even try to argue that denying this testing serves justice in some way. When Gov. Rick Perry pardoned Timothy Cole this year, it was good for Cole's his family but embarrassing for the State of Texas. We had a governor who refused for a very long time to address this issue. It took years. Nor should Perry granted Cole a pardon. Cole should have been exonerated years ago; the television cameras would have been at the front door of the prison as he walked out, a free man.

The State of Texas needs to do some re-thinking, and our citizens should remember this at the voting booth.

Tweet

Death Row

by Katherine Scardino

I have recently visited someone on Death Row (Texas Death Row, pictured left). In my 24 years of working in the criminal justice field, I have never been there before. I have heard from other people how depressing it is, but it is impossible to put into words the immediate response your mind has to the meaning of this place. You know that you are walking into a space occupied by people who are looking at an "end date". That is something that none of us have to do. We all know, intellectually, that we will not live forever, and that at one point in time, we will die. But, we do not know when. Many of the tenants of Death Row have a date. They know when their heart will stop beating, when their lungs will no longer take a breath, when their brain will cease to function.

The Texas Death Row is located in Livingston, Texas, in the Polunsky Unit. It is about five miles off the main road and sits alone. It is a sad sight. I went there to visit an inmate named Michael Toney. I had been contacted by a lawyer working for one of the big law firms in San Francisco, the kind of law firm that is able to do free legal work for whomever they choose. It is the type of law firm that those who are involved with it just call it "the Firm". The Firm decided to dedicate free lawyer hours and effort to free Michael Toney off Death Row. The Firm, along with another lawyer named Jared Tyler, who works for the Texas Defender Service, have been successful in getting Mr. Toney a new trial. That is where I enter the scene.

Michael Toney (pictured right) was convicted in Tarrant County in 1999 for a bombing that occurred there in November 1985. Yes, I said "1985". He was accused of placing an explosive device in a briefcase and setting the briefcase down in front of a trailer and subsequently killed three people. He obtained a reversal from the Fifth Circuit and a new trial as a result of misconduct by the State prosecutors in Tarrant County during his trial. It seems that they withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense lawyers, not to mention the fact that witnesses have recanted their testimony and State witnesses had different version of facts used to convict him. You can imagine how bad the problems had to be in a capital murder case in order for the Fifth Circuit to reverse his prior conviction.

I went to see Michael Toney with one of his lawyers, Jared Tyler. Jared and I sat in a cold room waiting for him to be brought in, unhandcuffed, and sat down behind a glass partition on a concrete stool. (Everything that can possibly be made out of concrete is concrete in the Polunsky Unit.) Mr. Toney arrived looking like he had just spent the last 10 years on Death Row. His complexion was pale and unhealthy, which is what inmates look like who have spent many hours in their cell with no access to a regular walk to the store in the sunshine.

I have always wondered about sensory deprivation. Can you imagine not touching another human being for years at a time. There have been many studies about the effect of sensory deprivation on inmates who are segregated or other people who choose to just be alone. Sensory deprivation is the deliberate reduction or removal of stimuli from one or more of the senses. It is one of the most favored measures used by the CIA in its "war on terror". It has so far been used on many detainees at Guantanamo Bay to the extreme - to the point of hallucinations of sight and sound, followed by a breakdown akin to psychosis.

Michael Toney sits in his 60 square feet of space 23 out of the 24 hours each day. During his one hour out of his cell, he must do his errands - like go to the Commissary, bathe, brush his teeth, plus try to work in a little sunshine. Sensory deprivation can change a person’s attitude and personality. It can make you paranoid, psychotic and generally mess up your mind.

I do not want to discuss today the crimes that were committed to cause Michael Toney or any of the inmates to be living at this facility. We all are well aware of the type of crime that results in a death penalty. As I said before, the people who live on Death Row are going to be executed at some point - except for Michael Toney, and I am going to try and work on that. But, they are human beings, even though they are treated and kept as animals. We keep them isolated, alone, no human contact, and then complain when they turn into an animal. We put our captured animals in cages in the zoo, and for the most part, they surely look peeved when I go to visit them. They are angry. The caged animals act angry. We read about an elephant attacking his trainer, a lion mauling a child, or some other horrid act - by an animal who should be in the wild but for us humans who think we must have a sample of their species in a cage for us to look at and point at and laugh at. They act angry - we shoot them. In the Polunsky Unit, when an inmate acts angry, he gets "written up" or deprived of his one hour of sunlight each day. Does anyone other than me see how ludicrous this is?

Michael Toney has something to look forward to. He has hope now. He talked about other inmates being jealous of his new trial. He was ready to get off Death Row and shipped to the Tarrant County Jail, where he will stay until a jury renders a verdict in his next trial. This time, I know that the verdict will be a lot different than the last one and I know that for one reason - all of the evidence will be presented to a jury - not just a part of it.

Tweet

Too Beaten Down to Cry

by Kelly Siegler

The most commonly asked question I have faced during my twenty-plus years as a prosecutor in one of the most-populated counties in the U.S. is, "How do you not let all of those things that you see affect you?"

As a prosecutor in Harris County, Texas, I have seen horrible things: photographs, statements, and details of the worst atrocities one human being can commit against another. Depraved, cruel, sick, heartbreaking crimes. Committed in the name of love, for money, just for the "fun" of it, because it was the easy way out, or for no reason at all.

Strangers murder strangers. Loved ones hurt loves ones. Mothers kill their babies. Daddies abuse their children. Children torture their parents. There is no line drawn anywhere that has ever stopped or ever will stop the horrific ways our world has found to hurt one other.

The details of the many cases and crimes I have handled would disgust and frighten "normal" people and there are too many to list.

Every police officer, medical examiner, or prosecutor who has given chunks of his or her life to law enforcement probably feels the same way. I could tell you about the time I had to display and discuss autopsy photos of the internal organs of a one-year-old girl, spread out on a metal tray, so a jury could see with their own eyes evidence of internal hemorrhaging. Or I could describe autopsy photos that showed the exact marks a hammer left on the skull of the woman Joseph Ezell swore that he loved. I could tell you what the weight of the world felt like when I questioned a little boy about being sexual abused. His eyes clung to mine while I asked him about sordid details he wishes he could forget but will remember forever.

So how do you not let any of that affect you?

Funny. I thought for a long time, that I didn't let it affect me. I answered people who asked me that question, "You just have to learn how not to bring it home with you, how to leave it all at work . . . to just not think about it." That was a skill I thought I'd mastered.

That ended the day I met a young lady named Amber Shore. Amber Shore is the biological daughter of Anthony Allen Shore (pictured right). Anthony Shore now sits on Texas Death Row, convicted of capital murder in Harris County in 2004. Corey Mitchell wrote about the horrible crimes committed by Shore, an admitted serial killer, in his book Strangler.

In preparing for Shore's trial, another prosecutor, Terese Buess, and I spent weeks lining up witnesses and physical evidence from Shore's many murders, in which he raped and strangled his female victims. It wasn't until the second phase of the trial, the punishment phase, that I met Amber in person. She flew to Houston because she had agreed to testify against her father, whom she had not seen for more than seven years. I met with Amber at a Houston hotel, where our office typically houses witnesses, one evening after her father's trial ended for the day. In her early twenties, Amber had dark hair and eyes like her father. She was shy and obviously nervous to meet me.

That evening, I explained all of the questions I would need to ask her on the witness stand the following day and delicately worked my way through her answers. She answered every question, as painful as they had to have been for her, about being raped and humiliated and scorned and degraded by her own father. She talked about being called "stupid," an "idiot," and "retarded" so often by him that she came to believe it. Without flinching and never shedding a tear, she told me everything she remembered.

She told me about her younger sister, Tiffany, and how beautiful and smart and how much more of a "people-person" Tiffany was. I can still see how her eyes lit up when she talked about her "successful" little sister.

But the answer that will always haunt me is when I asked Amber why she finally told someone her father was sexually abusing her. She looked at me and said, "because it didn't matter what he was doing to me. I'm nothing. But I couldn't let him do that to my sister. She's different, and she's special. And I had to protect her."

The contrast of her utter belief that she was "nothing" and her determination to protect her little sister affected me more than any other single moment in my career. It took incredible courage for Amber to stand up in a strange courtroom, years after the fact, and detail her horrific abuse, while her father/abuser, the man who'd convinced her she was nothing, sat directly in front of her.

Amber Shore, believing she was "a retard," testified in the face of the monster who was her father, all for the love of the little sister she was determined to protect. How could a father do to his baby girl what Anthony Shore did to Amber? And to Tiffany? And from where in her genetic make-up did Amber find such amazing courage? So terribly scarred by her father, who had the IQ of a genius, Amber continued to struggle in life.

Please God, watch over Amber.

Now when people ask me that question, "How do you not let all of those things that you hear and see affect you?" I tell them what I have always told them. That you have to learn to keep the two "lives" separate.

I lie. Because it's too painful to think about Amber Shore.

Tweet

Out of the Closet

by Diane Fanning

Just when I thought law enforcement had forgotten Tommy Lynn Sells, along comes a former deputy with Missouri's Cape Girardeau County Sheriff’s Department asking about a long forgotten body. And once again, Sells' name was dropped as a possible suspect. I thought by now he’d been considered in every single cold case that remained open in his home state in the 1980s and 1990s. Apparently not.

Back when Sells was arrested, on January 2, 2000, investigators across the country dusted off files of cold cases eager to see if Sells was a possible perpetrator. After 48 Hours aired the show about the serial killer, Texas Rangers Johnny Allen and Coy Smith came into their offices to discover hundreds of requests from detectives all across the country wanting to know if Sells could have been in the right place at the right time to commit an unsolved murder in their jurisdiction.

The inquiries and interview requests continued to flood into Texas up to Sells' trial in September 2000, when he was convicted of the murder and sexual assault of Katie Harris and the attempted murder of Krystal Surles in Del Rio, Texas. Sells was sentenced to death.

Some law enforcement agencies no longer wanted to waste resources on looking at Sells—after all, unlike some states, Texas is very serious about the enforcement of their death penalty. Other investigators, though, who hungered to find closure for family members and satisfaction in their quest for justice, continued travelling to Texas to question Sells.

I fielded a lot of requests for information, too. I heard from detectives, family members, prosecutors, defense attorneys, private investigators, and some from uninvolved but curious true-crime buffs. Among the latter group, I received hundreds of emails about the Darlie Routier case. Although she sits on Death Row for the murder of her two sons, many people still believe in her innocence. They wanted to know if Tommy Lynn Sells was in the Dallas area at the time of that crime. While there may be doubts about Darlie’s guilt, Sells had an ironclad alibi—he sat behind bars in a West Virginia prison. There was no way he was responsible for killing those two boys.

This summer, though, as Sells approaches the eighth anniversary of his death sentence, interest in the Death Row inmate seemed to have died down. The only question most people still asked was: Have they killed him yet?

Until this month in the boot heel of Missouri, that is. Renewed interest in a 1981 homicide case raised his name again. The remains of an unknown white male, aged 20 to 40 and ranging from 5-feet-nine to five-feet-eleven inches tall, were found in a wooded area on April 6, 1981. The corpse was clothed in green pants, a short-sleeved khaki shirt (above) and a pair of black loafers adorned with a buckle. His skull, however, was missing.

Two years and one week later, a mushroom hunter found the missing head in a nearby creek. In the area, there were only three missing men who fit the description of the victim. A comparison of dental records discovered no match to any of them. So, the remains and the clothing moldered away in a basement closet archive at the Southeast Missouri State University for the next two decades. Forgotten by all but one man.

Now he’s come forward, resurrecting the case, looking for justice. Will the authorities be able to tie it to Tommy Lynn Sells? The odds are stacked against them. In 1979 and 1980, when Sells wasn’t on the road, he was in Missouri. In 1981, though, his home base was Little Rock, Arkansas and he was just 17 years old. He has confessed to committing homicide at that young age but he never mentioned this case.

If not Sells, will they be able to identify anyone as the killer? Will they even be able to give the victim a name? It sounds unlikely after 27 years but scientists make a habit of transforming the impossible into the routine every day.

Forensic Science is an amazing and rapidly expanding field. What seemed like fantasy five years ago is now common forensic investigative technique in labs across the country. Who knows what microscopic trace evidence is nestled in the folds of his shirt or on the buckle of his shoe (above), waiting for a diligent individual to uncover.

One day, the unknown man in green pants may find justice after all.

Tweet

MYSTERY MAN MARATHON

A Special Mystery Man Series

This week, we are doing something special to commemorate the holiday weekend. Beginning on Thursday, Women in Crime Ink will publish a four-part Independence Day Series running from July 3 through July 6.

We have a special Mystery Man lined up just for the occasion. Freedom means a lot to this man. Our next guest contributor spent more than two decades on Texas Death Row for a crime he did not commit. In a fight for his life, he fought his way to having his conviction overturned and now has been cleared by DNA evidence.

Along the way, he learned the power of forgiveness.

Today, he is a free man and the father of a delightful, polite, and rambunctious 8-year-old boy. He has written a book about his incredible ordeal. This weekend, he will share his experience with you right here at Women in Crime Ink.

Think this Mystery Man is too easy to guess? As Americans, we would prefer to believe a wrongful conviction and death sentence to be a rare, almost non-existent occurrence. Yet, as most of us have learned, scientific advances have resulted in hundreds of post-conviction DNA exonerations.

Too many of them were falsely accused men headed for the death chamber when science and defenders stepped in to ensure that justice was served. The real mystery in our guest contributor's story is how the government was able to incarcerate an innocent man for more than two decades, and bring that man within days of a court-ordered execution.

This American's story is powerful and thought-provoking. He has a rare perspective on the criminal justice system, a viewpoint most of us cannot begin to comprehend. Read the first installment tomorrow, Thursday, July 3rd. This is a special Independence Day Series you won't want to miss.

Tweet

Why A Man of Faith Lost Faith in the Death Penalty

Hunt for Justice by Cynthia Hunt

I spent my 27th birthday covering the execution of pickax murderess Karla Faye Tucker.

The Death Row Woman Who Divided a Nation

Her crime was sadistic. The jury that sentenced her to death heard a tape of Tucker bragging that she had orgasms as she and an accomplice hacked their two victims to death. Later, Tucker had a jailhouse conversion to Christianity that was so compelling even death penalty advocates like Rev. Pat Robertson pleaded with then Texas Governor George W. Bush to commute her sentence.

Leading up to the execution, I did emotional interviews with people from all sides of this case.

One Tucker juror cried as she told me she stood by her death sentence decision but that Tucker’s execution would be the second worst day of her life, second only to a loved one’s death.

Even the Victim’s Family Disagreed

I did an exclusive interview with the victim’s grown children who had never spoken publicly. They wanted to see Tucker die. During the interview, their father became so upset reliving his wife’s murder he had to be rushed to the hospital by ambulance.

But even this victim’s family was split. The brother of this very same victim actually forgave Karla Faye and fought to have her life spared.

On February 3, 1998, that divided family witnessed Karla Faye Tucker (pictured left) die after a lethal injection. As I turned 27, I reported her death to an equally split nation.

Not since Karla Faye Tucker has there been a person who could capture the attention of both sides of death penalty debate and make them reconsider their position—until now.

Documentary Airs Tonight

Two documentary filmmakers will introduce us to such a person in their film, “At the Death House Door.” The documentary airs Thursday night on the Independent Film Channel.

The film tells the story of Pastor Carroll Pickett, a plain-spoken prison chaplain who witnessed ninety-five executions on Texas Death Row.

A Man of Faith's Conversion

Pickett, a Presbyterian minister, began his career as a prison preacher who believed in capital punishment because of his grandfather’s own murder and a prison siege that killed two people from his own congregation, but he never told anyone what he thought.

“If I said I was for capital punishment, the inmates would’ve never talked to me," Pickett says. "If I said I was against it, I’d been fired so I kept my mouth shut.”

But after fifteen years of watching executions, he decided capital punishment was not just, moral, or a deterrent. Now, thirteen years after his retirement, Pickett tells the story of the ninety-five executions he witnessed, a story he did not seek to tell.

The Death Tapes

After each execution, Pickett recorded his thoughts on a cassette tape. He says he needed to talk and the only thing in his house was a tape recorder. He never intended for the tapes to be used, but when he casually mentioned them to some filmmakers who were doing research, they persuaded him to share those tapes. Their focus of their film immediately changed to the post-execution thoughts of this pivotal man.

On these tapes, Pickett describes each execution in both large and small detail. He says what it is like to pray with the killers, what the condemned said to him, and what each man did as the lethal cocktail flowed into his veins. Pickett watched the execution of Ronald O'Bryan (pictured above). He was put to death for poisoning his son's Halloween candy with cyanide.

Preacher Accuses Texas Officials of Covering Up Botched Execution

Pickett describes how something had gone wrong with one of the executions. He says he watched the inmate die a slow, agonizing death that took eleven minutes.

"That’s not, to me, either Christian or American or Texan,” Pickett told a group. He says that Texas officials intentionally lie when they claim there has never been an execution with complications.

The film explores the case of Carlos De Luna, a man Pickett and many others believe was innocent. The documentary covers the facts of the case and shakes the confidence of citizens who think only the guilty make it to the death chamber.

Through Reverend Pickett, this film should raise new questions and concerns in the hearts of many Americans about capital punishment and how often we should use it.

A Texas Execution Few Opposed

When I think of this never-ending debate, my thoughts always drift to another case and the twin daughters of murder victim, Dr. Claudia Benton (shown below). Her little girls were only in the sixth grade when the so-called “railroad serial killer,” Angel Maturino Resendez, broke into their home, beat their mother to death, and raped her post mortem. Texas executed him in 2006. I think Benton’s daughters who are now grown must feel better knowing that monster is no longer on this earth.

At least Resendez died with a last meal, prison chaplain, and a final statement, which is a lot more than the good doctor, the school teacher, the preacher and his wife or any of the other almost dozen victims had when that monster executed them.

More Executions Expected in Coming Months

I’ll be tuning in tonight for Pickett’s story. In April, the United States Supreme Court upheld Kentucky’s method of capital punishment by lethal injection. That decision means more inmates will likely be put to death in the coming months.

Whatever side you are on, there is something to learn from a humble man of God who watched ninety-five convicted killers take their last breath.

"At the Death House Door" Premieres Thursday, May 29 Independent Film Channel 9:00 p.m. EDT

Tweet

Death by Lethal Injection - What's Cruel to Animals is Not Cruel to the Condemned

by Katherine Scardino

Yesterday, the highest court in our land issued a landmark decision about the death penalty in the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld Kentucky’s method of execution, refusing to rule for condemned petitioner Ralph Baze (pictured below) who claimed that death by lethal injection constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the 8th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution.

The issue in this case was based on the lethal "cocktail" that is used to execute people convicted of capital murder and sentenced to die. One drug in this three-drug combination, pancuronium bromide, works its way through the body and basically numbs the nervous system in such a way that the person being executed may feel the excruciating pain caused by this lethal combination of chemicals but is unable to express his pain and torture. There have been documented cases of patient awareness or "anesthesia awareness" (click here for video explaining phenomenon). During anesthesia awareness, patients undergoing surgery are awake during the procedure - able to feel the pain - but powerless to tell the surgical team that they are aware of the knife cutting through the body. People who have undergone this horrifying experience have been traumatized by the event and have come forward to let the world know about this terrible drug. One patient's post-traumatic stress led him to commit suicide. The phenomenon of patient awareness is horrific enough to have inspired the film Awake.

Veterinarians banned the use of pancuronium bromide to euthanize animals. Even this profession no longer uses this drug in their field because they realized that it was painful and cruel. So why does our Supreme Court believe that it is appropriate for human beings?

Perhaps this subject opens up dialogue about whether capital punishment is "cruel and unusual" - whether we, as a nation of civilized people, believe that killing is a morally justified response to killing. Our courts have stated that we must evolve in our laws based on our evolving standards of decency. We have gone through several different methods of capital punishment in our history - beheading, the body being drawn and quartered, shot, electrocuted - but over time, we have decided that these methods are cruel and inappropriate for our evolving society.

The result of this ruling is that the inmates who have been waiting for their execution will now be on the "fast track" to death. In my area alone, there are six people waiting to die on Death Row. The Supreme Court has now opened the door to more executions - and back to the same old method disclaimed by the vets for their beloved animals. Are we not better than that?

Tweet