An Innocent Man? (Redux)

This story from the morning's news sent chills down my spine. I posted some thoughts about Roger Coleman's case last year, and rereading them today rekindled the anger this case always stirs for me.

Will new DNA technology prove Coleman's innocence? Will it instead prove all of us wrong, who have long proclaimed that innocence, and show us up as bleeding-heart chumps for touting Coleman's case as a horrifying example of the death penalty's evils and the criminal justice system's failings? Or will it only build another layer of ambiguity onto the decades-old pile of confusion about who killed Wanda McCoy? And while proof of his innocence cannot save Coleman, who was executed in 1992, will it benefit others who seek to prove their wrongful convictions through advanced DNA-testing technology, and will it further undermine Americans' reportedly waning support for capital punishment?

I am waiting eagerly and anxiously for the results.

Comments

[The Happy Feminist]

Your post last year on Coleman was excellent! I read "May God Have Mercy" when it first came out (just as I was graduating law school and starting practice as a prosecutor) and was blown away.

I am also amazed, AMAZED, at how many states (34!) actually permit the death penalty --
http://teacher.deathpenaltyinfo.msu.edu/c/states/maps/policy.htm

Kudos to you for doing death penalty work (which you mentioned in your prior post). A possible blogging topic?

[mad]

Thanks! I don't have any death cases right now (though at least one is working its way through the state system and may hit my desk this year). Still, I will try to condense some of my thoughts about my past d.p. work into a post at some point. I've been watching the new Kyle McLachlen vehicle on ABC, InJustice, and am formulating a post based on my very mixed reaction to the show so far. Keep up your own fabulous blogging, H.F.!