News and Developments 2006: Innocence

Inmates With Severe Mental Illness Underscore Broader Death Penalty Problems

Posted: December 27, 2006
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In his final article for 2006, columnist Richard Cohen (pictured) chose to highlight the "madness of the death penalty" and to draw attention to the execution of those with mental illness. Cohen used the case of Gregory Thompson, a severely mentally ill Tennessee death row inmate, to illustrate some of the broader problems with the death penalty.

Thompson is delusional, paranoid, schizophrenic, and depressed. He takes 12 pills every day and receives twice-monthly anti-psychotic injections. Cohen notes that although there is no doubt about his guilt, there is grave doubt "about the constitutionality, not to mention the decency, of executing an insane man. . . . The idea, according to a recent account of his case in the Wall Street Journal, is to make him sane enough to be put to death." Cohen voices concern about a broad range of uncertainties with the death penalty, including the danger of convicting innocent people. He notes that Americans are growing more skeptical of capital punishment and that they may be "beginning to understand that we just don't need the death penalty, that it makes us no safer and demeans us as a people."

Pennsylvania Commission to Study Innocence Cases

Posted: November 29, 2006
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Pennsylvania State Sen. Stewart J. Greenleaf, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced the formation of an advisory committee to examine the cases of people who have been wrongly convicted in the state.  The commission will consist of about 30 members drawn from the state's prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, corrections officials, police, victim advocates and others. The commission will report its findings and recommendations to the Senate by Nov. 30, 2008.

NEW RESOURCES: Papers from "The Faces of Wrongful Conviction" Symposium

Posted: October 31, 2006
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The Fall 2006 edition of the Golden Gate University Law Review contains papers from the recent Symposium entitled "The Faces of Wrongful Conviction" that was held at UCLA in April 2006.  The journal includes articles by Simon Cole on fingerprint evidence, by Alexandra Natapoff on the use of snitches, by Craig Haney on expanding beyond innocence when examining injustices in capital cases, and by Thomas Sullivan on the recording of custodial interviews.

BOOKS: The Dreams of Ada

Posted: October 26, 2006
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"The Dreams of Ada" by Robert Mayer tells a story strikingly similar to that recounted by John Grisham in "The Innocent Man."  Each book involves the murder of a young woman from Ada, Oklahoma in the early 1980s.  In both cases, there are two defendants whose convictions rely on little probative evidence but involve "confessions" that emerged from a dream.  Both prosecutions were led by Bill Peterson and both involved the same jail-house informant.  The defendants in Mayer's book, Tommy Ward and Karl Fontenot, were both sentenced to death, as was Ron Williamson in Grisham's book.  Williamson and his co-defendant were eventually freed when DNA evidence excluded them from the crime scene.  Ward and Fontenot remain in prison for life, after their death sentences were overturned.  In their case, there was no DNA evidence to provide a more definitive answer.  At the time of their trial, no body had even been discovered.  Both Mayer and Grisham believe that Ward and Fontenot were victims of a complete miscarriage of justice. 

NEW VOICES: Federal Appeals Court Judge of the Fifth Circuit Expresses Legal and Moral Problems with the Death Penalty

Posted: October 23, 2006
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Judge Carolyn Dineen King of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit was the main speaker at the "Red Mass" on October 4 at the Catholic cathedral in Corpus Christi, Texas.  The Red Mass is an annual liturgy held for members of the legal profession near the beginning of the judicial term.  Its traditions extend back to 13th century Europe.  Judge King spoke about the death penalty, both from her perspective as a judge and as a Catholic.  In both areas, she raised strong concerns about the application of the death penalty in the U.S.

Pennsylvania Man Freed From Death Row

Posted: October 19, 2006
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Dennis Counterman was freed from a Pennsylvania courtroom on October 18, 2006 after serving many years on the state's death row.  Counterman had been convicted and sentenced to death in 1990 for allegedly setting a fire in his own house that resulted in the death of his three children.  That conviction was overturned in 2001 because prosecutors had withheld evidence from the defense indicating that the oldest child had a history of fire-setting.