The death penalty. It’s easily one of the biggest debates in America. Even today. Now those who agree with the death penalty like to imagine that the state never gets it wrong. However, that’s just not the case. It is better that ten guilty people go free than one innocent person be killed for a crime he did not commit. The case of Carlos DeLuna is not a lesson in justice, but injustice. It truly lays bare America’s broken “machinery of death.” The term machinery of death comes from Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, who spent 24 years reviewing and often upholding death sentences. He had come to the conclusion that the potential for error is just far too great in a system which is “fraught with arbitrariness, discrimination, caprice and mistake.”
And while a large majority of people believe that America has the best justice system in the world, the case of Carlos DeLuna proves that even in America, an innocent man can be executed.
Podcast Promos:
Trace Evidence:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/traceevpod
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TraceEvidencePod/
Website: https://www.trace-evidence.com/
I Said God Damn
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ISGDpodcast
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/ISGDPodcast/posts/
Website: https://isgdpodcast.com/
Sources:
The Wrong Carlos: Anatomy of a Wrongful Execution by James S. Liebman, Shawn Crowley, Andrew Markquart, Lauren Rosenberg
Corpus Christi Caller-Times, 16 May, 2012 5- “Death Penalty – Study; Wrong Man Killed”
Dallas Examiner, 15 May, 2012 – “Texas Man Found Innocent 23 Years After Execution”
The Monitor, 19 May, 2012 – “Recent Report Brings Decades Old Execution to Forefront of Discussion”
Houston Chronicle, 14 October, 1986 – “Federal Judge Issues Stay of Execution for Convicted Killed DeLuna”
Austin American-Statesman, 11 December, 2003 – “Questioning The Myth of a Painless Execution”
The Los Angeles Times, 1 June, 2012 – “Fatal Injustice”
The Chicago Tribune, 27 June, 2006 – “Did One Man Die for Another Man’s Crime?”
The New York Times, 23 February, 1994 – “Tinkering With the Machinery of Death”
National Post, 20 July, 2013 – “A Matter of Life and Death”
The Monitor, 30 November 1989 – “Convicted Man Afraid to Die”
Houston Chronicle, 16 May, 2012 – “Legislators: Police Lineup Flawed in 83 Murder Case”
Audio Sources:
“Karen Bodrie-Evers Interview”
“ABC’s “World News Tonight” on Carlos DeLuna”
“Priscilla Jaramillo Interview”
