Coming
in September
From AK Press
Featuring Essays by:
Edward Said, Robert Fisk, Michael Neumann, Shahid Alam, Alexander
Cockburn, Uri Avnery, Bill and Kathy Christison and More
Today's
Stories
August 13, 2003
Joanne Mariner
A Wall of Separation Through the
Heart
August 12, 2003
William Blum
Myth
and Denial in the War on Terrorism
Ron Jacobs
Revisionist History: the Bush Administration, Civil Rights and
Iraq
Josh Frank
Dean's Constitutional Hang-Up
Wayne Madsen
What's a Fifth Columnist? Well, Someone Like Hitchens
Ray McGovern
Relax,
It Was All a Pack of Lies
Wendy Brinker
Hubris in the White House
Website of the Day
Black
Mustache
Recent
Stories
August
11, 2003
Douglas
Valentine
Homeland Security for Whom?
Mickey
Z.
Bush's Progress
Bill
Glahn
RIAA Watch: Meet the New Bitch, Same
as the Old
Elaine
Cassel
Indicting DNA
Dr. Mohammad
Omar Farooq
Civil Liberties and Uncivil Super-Patriotism
Uri
Avnery
Who Will Save Abu Mazen?
Website
of the Day
RIAA Subpoena Clearinghouse
August
9 / 10, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
California's Glorious Recall!
Saul
Landau
Bush and King Henry
Gary
Leupp
On Terrorism, Methodism, "Wahhabism"
and the Censored 9/11 Report
Paul de
Rooij
The Parade of the Body Bags
Michael
Egan
History and the Tragedy of American Diplomacy
Rob Eshelman
A Home of Our Own
Daoud
Kuttab
Life as an ID Card
Philip
Agee
Terror and Civil Society: Instruments of US Policy in Cuba
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Marc Racicot: Bush's Main Man
Walt Brasch
Schwarzenegger, "Hollyweird"
and the Rigtheous Right
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush, Bribery and Berlusconi
Josh Frank
Mean, Mean Howard Dean
Elaine
Cassel
Will the Death Penalty Ever Die?
Sean Carter
Total Recall
Poets'
Basement
Hamod, Engel, Albert
August
8, 2003
John
Chuckman
What the US Says Goes
Roberto
Barreto
Defend the Vieques 12!
Bruce Gagnon
Iraq War Emboldens Bush Space Plans
Elaine
Cassel
The Reign of John Ashcroft
Dave
Lindorff
Snoops Night Out
Website
of the Day
Zero Boy
August
7, 2003
M.
Shahid Alam
It the US a "Terrorist Magnet?"
Toni
Solo
Neo-liberal Nicaragua: a New Banana
Republic
Adam Lebowitz
Hiroshima Commemorated: the View from Japan
Hanan
Ashrawi
When the Bully Whines
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Conscience Takes a Holiday
Jason
Leopold
Wolfowitz Lets Slip: Iraq Not Behind 9/11; No Ties to Al-Qaeda
Mike Kimaid
What's the Score?
Elaine
Cassel
The Smell of VICTORY: Ashcroft's Latest Stinkbomb
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
August 6, 2003
Steve
Higgs
Going to Jail for the Cause: It's Not
Easy Confronting King Coal
David
Krieger
Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Robert
Fisk
The Ghosts of Uday and Qusay
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's War on the National Forests
Elaine
Cassel
No Fly Lists
Stan
Goff
Military Equipment and Pneumonia
Hugh Sansom
An Open Letter to Nicholas Kristof on the Nuking of Japan
August
5, 2003
Uri
Avnery
The Prisoner of Ramallah: Arafat at
74
Forrest
Hylton
Terrorism and Political Trials: the
View from Bolivia
Ray
McGovern
"We Cook Estimates to Go"
David
Morse
Poindexter's Gambit
Edward
Said
Orientallism: 25 Years Later
George
W. Bush
My Darn Good Resumé
Hammond
Guthrie
It's Incremental, Watson!
Website
of the Day
National Prayer Day
August 4, 2003
Bruce
K. Gagnon
Another Peace Activist Detained by
Airport Cops: My Story
David
Lindorff
Fear-Mongering About Social Security
Mark
Zepezauer
George F. Will: Descent into Self-Parody
James
Plummer
Tracking You Through the Mail
Mickey
Z.
Marriage Insecurity from Sharon to Bush
Bruce
Jackson
News that Isn't News: How the NYT's
Pimps for the White House
August
2 / 3, 2003
Tamara
R. Piety
Nike's Full Court Press Breaks Down
Francis
Boyle
My Alma Mater, the University of Chicago, is a Moral Cesspool
David
Vest
Sons of Paleface: Pictures from Death's Other Side
Neve Gordon
Nightlife in Jerusalem
Uri
Avnery
Their Master's Voice:
Bush, Blair and Intelligence Snafus
Robert
Fisk
Paternalistic Democracy for Iraq
Jerry
Kroth
Israel, Yellowcake and the Media
Noah Leavitt
What's Driving the Liberian Bloodbath: Is the US Obligated to
Intervene?
Saul
Landau
The Film Industry: Business and Ideology
Ron Jacobs
One Big Prison Yard: the Meaning of George Jackson
Thomas
Croft
In the Deep, Deep Rough: Reflections on Augusta
Amadi Ajamu
Def Sham: Russell Simmons New Black Leader?
Poets'
Basement
Vega, Witherup, Albert and Fleming
August
1, 2003
Joanne
Mariner
Stopping Prison Rape
Alex Coolman
Who Moved My Soap: Trivializing
Prison Rape
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Stan Goff
Injury and Decorum: The Missing Wounded in Iraq
Wayne
Madsen
Europe Unplugs from the Matrix
Robert
Fisk
Wolfowitz the Censor
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft Loses Big in Puerto Rico
Website
of the Day
Stop Prisoner Rape
July
31, 2003
Ray
McGovern
The Prostitution of Intelligence
Brian
Cloughley
Wolfowitz's Operative Statement
Sheldon
Hull
The RIAA's Jihad:
The Devil's Music (Industry)
Elaine
Cassel
The Next Time You Crack a Lawyer Joke, Think of These Attorneys
Sheldon
Rampton
and John Stauber
True Lies: Propaganda and Bush's
Wars
Hammond
Guthrie
Speculation Blues
Website
of the Day
Army of One?
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
July
30, 2003
David
Lindorff
Poindexter the Terror Bookie
Marjorie
Cohn
Why Iraq and Afghanistan? It's About
the Oil
Elaine
Cassel
How Ashcroft Coerces Guilty Pleas
in Terror Cases
Zvi
Bar'el
The Hidden Costs of the Iraq War
Lisa Walsh
Thomas
Killing Mustafa Hussein: Death of a Child, Birth of a Legend?
Sean
Carter
Pat Robertson's Prayer Jihad: God, Sodomy and the Supremes
ND Jayaprakash
India and Ariel Sharon
Steve
Perry
Bush's Top 40 Lies
Standard
Schaefer
Correction about Bloomberg and Outscourcing
Website
of the Day
Bring Them Home Now!
Hot Stories
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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August
13, 2003
Executing the Innocent
Murderous Errors
By ELAINE CASSEL
But I am in
So far in blood that sin will pluck on sin:
Tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye.
Richard III
Since 1973, 111 people waiting execution on death
row have been released because they are actually innocent. That
means 111 could have been wrongly executed in our names. How
many of the nearly 900 executed during these years have been
innocent? We will never know for sure, though there is a long
list of possibilities based on reporting by journalists and filings
by attorneys.
A handful of federal judges are troubled
by the thought of innocent people dying. But as welcome as it
was to hear that Boston federal district court Judge Mark A.
Wolf is troubled by this prospect, his refusal to act on his
misgivings makes one wonder. What in the world has happened to
"justice" in a country that will let one innocent man
die? And think it is just fine?
According to a report in The New York
Times, Wolf said, "In the past decade, substantial evidence
has emerged to demonstrate that innocent individuals are sentenced
to death, and undoubtedly executed, much more often than previously
understood."
But...(and that there is a "but"
is appalling), he said, "The day may come the when a court
properly {emphasis supplied} can and should declare the ultimate
sanction to be unconstitutional in all cases. However, that day
has not yet come."
And what will it take for "that
day" to come? Why, we, as a country, must decide "how
large a fraction of the executed must be innocent to offend contemporary
standards of decency."
The "offend contemporary standards
of decency" line comes from the Supreme Court's rationale
for considering if a punishment is sufficient to fail the 8th
Amendment's constitutional protection against "cruel and
unusual" punishment.
Is it cruel and unusual punishment to
execute a retarded man? The Supreme Court said last year, by
a slim 5-4 margin, that it was.
Is it cruel and unusual to execute someone
who was a juvenile at the time of the offense? The Supreme Court
has said it is not.
Is it cruel and unusual to execute an
innocent man? The Supreme Court has said repeatedly that it is
not concerned if innocent people die, as long as the state or
federal government followed its laws and procedures.
Are you offended by that? Judge Wolf
was not.
The case that gave rise to Wolf's ruling
has John Ashcroft's dirty bootprints all over it. Gary Lee Sampson
admitted to killing three men while he was hitchhiking in Massachusetts
and New Hampshire in 2001. He offered to plead guilty to state
murder charges in Massachusetts and receive the maximum punishment
of life in prison without parole. The State of Massachusetts
does not have the death penalty.
Enter John Ashcroft and his war on state's
rights, especially states with antipathy toward the death penalty.
In his admitted effort to bring the death penalty to every state
that does not have this sanction, Ashcroft directed the prosecutors
to bring federal kidnapping charges against Sampson that would
make him eligible for the federal death penalty. Ashcroft did
this recently in Alexandria, Virginia, in the case of Jay Lentz.
Not content to see Lenz tried for the murder of his ex-wife (this
was a case with no body, no crime scene, and no weapon) in state
court, Ashcroft had him charged with murder and kidnapping. Though
the jury convicted Lentz, they sparred his life, much to the
distress of Ashcroft and his prosecutors.
But Judge Gerald Bruce Lee threw out
the conviction, saying there was no evidence at all of kidnapping
to warrant the federal charge, let alone to support a conviction.
Naturally, the government is appealing that decision.
Judge Wolf, a Reagan appointee and former
federal prosecutor, noted that "juries have recently been
regularly disagreeing with the attorney general's contention
that the death penalty is justified in the most egregious federal
cases involving murder."
Wolf is right. The latest count shows
that Ashcroft is 1 for 20 in his making a federal case out of
murder just to get the defendant executed. The most recent acquittals
were this month in Puerto Rico, which does not have the death
penalty. The Lenz case, in which the jury rejected the death
penalty, preceded that one. Virginians have no problem with the
death penalty--their love for it is second only to George Bush's
Texas.
What does Ashcroft have to say about
executing innocent people? As reported by The Times, a "Justice"
spokesperson, Monica Goodling, said the Department has an obligation
to ensure the fair and consistent application of the federal
death penalty.
And what does that mean, pray tell? It
means to kill everyone that is remotely eligible.
Ashcroft is a blight on America. State
and federal governments kill in our name. We all have the blood
of innocents on our hands.
How much blood is too much?
Elaine Cassel
practices law in Virginia and the District of Columbia, teachers
law and psychology, and follows the Bush regime's dismantling
of the Constitution at Civil
Liberties Watch. She can be reached at: ecassel1@cox.net
Weekend
Edition Features for August 9 / 10, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
California's Glorious Recall!
Saul
Landau
Bush and King Henry
Gary
Leupp
On Terrorism, Methodism, "Wahhabism"
and the Censored 9/11 Report
Paul de
Rooij
The Parade of the Body Bags
Michael
Egan
History and the Tragedy of American Diplomacy
Rob Eshelman
A Home of Our Own
Daoud
Kuttab
Life as an ID Card
Philip
Agee
Terror and Civil Society: Instruments of US Policy in Cuba
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Marc Racicot: Bush's Main Man
Walt Brasch
Schwarzenegger, "Hollyweird"
and the Rigtheous Right
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush, Bribery and Berlusconi
Josh Frank
Mean, Mean Howard Dean
Elaine
Cassel
Will the Death Penalty Ever Die?
Sean Carter
Total Recall
Poets'
Basement
Hamod, Engel, Albert
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