"During my 14 wasted years on death row, I always hoped that my nightmare would count for something," Graham said. "That's why I'm here today." Graham, who was convicted and later exonerated in the 1986 slayings of an elderly Louisiana couple, told lawmakers that his attorneys had little criminal trial experience and that one was only months out of law school. Last December, after attorneys working for free took up his cause and proved that key witnesses lied and prosecutors withheld evidence, the case was dismissed. Graham walked out of prison without enough money to buy a bus ticket back to Virginia.
"Someone on trial for his life deserves a fair trial and a competent defense attorney," said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), committee chairman and the bill's chief sponsor. "We're talking about the ultimate penalty that can be imposed." [...] But Alabama Attorney General William H. Pryor Jr. testified that the current system of appeals is designed to protect innocent defendants and that it works. He said the changes would further delay justice for families who lose loved ones to violent crimes. "It would lengthen and complicate an already Byzantine system . . . and harm the real innocents in this process," Pryor said. "If your concern is to protect the innocent from being executed, then you need not worry; it is not occurring."
I see. So somehow, it's more important that families who have lost loved ones receive "justice" by making sure someone is executed than it is to make sure that the person who actually committed the crime is executed. Mr Pryor would rather risk having the state execute the wrong person as long as it occurs in a somewhat timely fashion. What a very lovely person he is.
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after]
Archives before February 5, 2001
Search entries:
12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!