The death penalty is one of man’s strangest inventions. We have long felt a need for it, but an inability to know how to use it. Too often, it seems, the individuals who deserve it least are the ones who get it the most, and the ones who deserve it the most get a free pass on it.             For example, if there ever was a case in which the death penalty is more deserving than in the beating death in July 2011 of 37-year-old Kelly Thomas by six Fullerton County police officers, I have yet to come across it. Perhaps there’s one or two more deserving, like Manson and Gacy, but it would still be a toss-up between them and the Fullerton cops.            Kelly Thomas, by no means, was a model, influential citizen. Some would even consider the homeless schizophrenic who survived as best he could on the streets of Fullerton a social nuisance. And probably on the night of July 5, 2011, Thomas was either peering into or even vandalizing parked vehicles—and when the Fullerton officer Manuel Ramos showed up near Fullerton Transportation Center, he found a shirtless, disheveled Thomas who resisted the officer’s efforts to search him. All ...

           Noah was 7, John, 5, Paul, 3, Luke, 2, and Mary, 6 months, when, on June 20, 2001, their mother took each child, who was named  after people of the Bible and New Testament, into the bathroom, and in spite of all their crying, pleas, and screams, drowned them before calling her husband and 911.             That’s what Andrea Yates did. No doubt about that. No dispute about guilt. As a society, we would think it unimaginable if a stranger broke into a mother’s home and killed her five children in the same manner. That person would get the death penalty—and, in fact, some states which have abolished the death penalty would reenact it just for this one individual, if they could.             In March, 2002, a Harris County, Texas, jury rejected an insanity plea by Yates and convicted her of capital murder recommending a life sentence with parole eligibility after 40 years. In January 2005, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, finding that false forensic testimony had been used to convict Yates, reversed her conviction and ordered a new trial. In July 2006, Yates’s defense team convinced a jury that the mother was insane at the time of the crime ...

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin is determined to see that Garry Thomas Allen’s execution is carried out as scheduled on April 12, 2012. In 2005, the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board voted 4-1 to reduce Allen’s death sentence to life imprisonment. On March 13 of this year, Gov. Fallin rejected that clemency recommendation. Given that most Pardon and Parole Boards are conservative by nature and do not recommend clemency lightly, especially in death penalty cases, demonstrates the Governor’s intention to see that Allen is put to death. The Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and Allen’s attorney, Steve Mullins, believe the Governor’s decision will send a mentally ill man to his death. We have a collective aversion of executing mentally ill inmates in America. Mullins says that Allen was mentally ill in 1986 when he reportedly killed Lawanna Gail Titsworth, the mother of two children, and that his mental illness has worsened in the ensuing 26 years. Those trying to prevent Allen’s execution are not optimistic. Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty board member James T. Rowan has shared with the media the result of a meeting Mullins had with Gov. Fallins during which she said that while the condemned inmate’s clemency ...

           In 2000, my wife, Jodie, and I published “A Life in the Balance: The Billy Wayne Sinclair Story” (Arcade Pub., N.Y.). We are pleased to announce that the book was re-released this month by Skyhorse Publishing in New York and is now available on Kindle.            The book is a memoir of the first 35 of the 40 years I spent in the Louisiana prison system. Five of those years, from March 1967 to November 1972, were spent on death row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary. Prior to the June 1972 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Furman v. Georgia, which effectively invalidated all death sentences in the United States, there had been a quasi-official “moratorium” on executions in this country. Pre-Furman death row was much different than post-Furman death row. The first five years in the 1960s had seen executions dwindle until they stopped in 1965. Thus, the actual threat of execution dissipated during the moratorium years.            And while it would be nearly five years before a post-Furman execution was carried out—Gary Gilmore on January 17, 1977 in Utah—condemned inmates given death sentences in the wake of Furman understood with some certainty that they faced the real threat ...

           Has an innocent man ever been executed in America post Furman v. Georgia?             There is no clear cut, absolute evidence that such has occurred; no posthumous exoneration. But common sense, human experience, and the very nature of the American criminal justice system inevitably leads most of us to believe innocent person(s) have been put to death, especially in the State of Texas. The Death Penalty Information Center reports that since 1973, a total of 140 death row inmates have been exonerated. From 1973 through 1999, there was an average of 3 death row exonerations per year, and that number increased to 5 between 2000 and 2011.             If 140 innocent condemned inmates were rescued from the death penalty, how many were not so lucky? One, half-dozen, a dozen? The number is really not important. We know in our hearts that innocent persons have been railroaded to death row and put to death. That is the fatal flaw inherent in the death penalty.             But many people in this country, particularly in Texas, are not really concerned about the prospect of an innocent person having been executed. Collateral damage in the “war on violent crime,” they believe. And, more to the point, ...

           If there ever was a man prepared to die, it was “Texas Seven” leader George Rivas. An intelligent man, Rivas masterminded one of the most spectacular escapes in the annals of American penal history. He and six other long term inmates escaped on December 13, 2000 from the John Connally Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice—a facility located an hour south of San Antonio in Kenedy. They stole prison guards’ uniforms, took weapons from the prison’s armory, and drove out of the maximum security facility in a prison truck. They reportedly left behind a note saying: “You haven’t heard the last of it yet.”             While Rivas may have been able to control his fellow inmates before and during the escape, it all fell apart once they group was free. According to press reports, they robbed a Radio Shack in Pearland the day after the escape. They then decided to rob Oshman’s Sporting Goods in Irving, Texas, on Christmas Eve. They took more than $70,000 in cash, dozens of weapons, ammunition, and the wallets and jewelry of store employees.             Then the unexpected happened. An off-duty employee saw the commotion inside the store and alerted law enforcement. Police officer ...

           Happy endings always make me happy. I’d rather be happy than sad, miserable, and depressed—and that’s exactly what I would have been had the third round of the West Memphis Three documentary, Paradise Lost, captured an Oscar. I have nothing personal against the documentaries’ directors Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, but I do resent their turning the case of three admitted child killers into a cottage industry. But there’s a bright side: they have just about milked that cow tit dry, and perhaps they will now get on down the road with some meaningful documentary work.             The fact that the “Purgatory” lost to the “Undefeated” makes the outcome all the more satisfying. Undefeated is about real people—kids who dealt with their deprived existence through courage, determination, and excellence on the football field. These young men, and the coach who inspired them, deserved to be recognized, even celebrated, for their extraordinary life efforts.             Our society has a long, sordid history of glorifying criminals: Jessie James after the Civil War, Billy the Kid in the Old West, and John Dillinger during the Depression. The worst the times are, the more we heap glorification upon the worst kind of killers. It is ...

           That’s the suggestion Reese gave me recently concerning one of my previous posts about Damien Echols and the West Memphis Three case.             Sorry, Reese, no can do. Short of a conscience-stricken, deathbed confession by Echols or one of the other two, we will never know who killed those three Cub Scouts on May 3, 1993 in West Memphis, Arkansas. All any of us can do now is examine the information in the public record to form our opinions. I have done that, as much as possible without devoting my life to the case. I have expressed my opinions with what I believe are rational, logical, and, yes, factual arguments. I’m sure most West Memphis Three supporters have done essentially the same thing.             I believe the entire “innocence” arguments Damien Echols has put forward is constructed like a “house of cards.” He is a liar, and the fresh air of freedom has not cured his insatiable appetite for lying. Last month he gave an interview to Reuters reporter Zorianna Kit in Park City, Utah where he was promoting the latest “documentary” about the West Memphis Three case at the Sundance Film Festival. This one produced by “Lord of the Rings” ...

           Victor L. Streib, former Professor at Law at Ohio Northern University, has researched women and the death penalty for more than a quarter of a century. The Death Penalty Information Center recently reported  Professor Streib’s 2012 update of his continuing study, Death Penalty and Female Offenders, January 1, 1973 through December 31, 2011. Streib’s latest update includes these findings: RECENT DEVELOPMENTS (1) From 1973 through 2011, California, Texas and Florida were the leading states for sentencing women to death. (2) In 2011, women constituted 6.4% (5/78) of all persons sentenced to death, the highest percentage for any year in the current death penalty era. (3) As of the end of 2011, fifty-eight women were on death row. Eighteen were in California which hasn’t executed a woman since 1962. (4) One-fifth (12) of these fifty-eight death-sentenced women killed their husbands or boyfriends; and another one-fifth (12/59) killed their children. One other woman killed both her husband and children, and four other women killed a young niece, nephew, or child in their care. (5) Virginia executed Teresa Lewis on September 23, 2010, the first execution of a woman (in that state) in nearly a century. SCREENING FEMALE OFFENDERS FOR THE DEATH PENALTY (1) Women account for 10.0% of murder ...

           Over the last several weeks I have received a number of comments about Damien Echols’ alleged rape by Arkansas prison guards while he was housed on death row. One comment accused me of inventing the claim—in other words, that Echols had never claimed he was raped and the claim has never appeared in the public forum.             In a December 2010 post, I mentioned this issue and made it clear that I believe Echols is an “unmitigated liar.” My information about the alleged rape came from a four-part series written by Jonesboro Sun reporter George Jared in July 2010 on the “West Memphis Three” case. In the second part of that series, Jared reported Echols’ claim that he had been raped by prison guards while on death row.             Initially, I got the Jonesboro Sun series from a “Free West Memphis Three” website. The four articles have been removed from the site. I wonder why? I tried to access the series through the newspaper website for hyperlink in this article, but was informed I would have to pay a $7.95 registration fee to “sign up” for old/archived articles. I am not about the spend $7.95 for anything about the West Memphis ...