Dupree and Massingill: Spence and Melendez

Cornelius Dupree is free from prison after serving 30 years in Texas for a rape he did not commit. DNA testing proved he was innocent.

Anthony Massingill remains in prison. He was convicted for the same crime as Dupree, an alleged accomplice. The DNA testing that freed Dupree also exonerated Massingill. Massingill remains in prison, however, for a second rape he claims he did not commit. He hopes that DNA will soon exonerate him in that case as well.

David Wayne Spence is dead, executed by Texas in 1997 under the watchful eye of George W. Bush for the murder of three teenagers at Lake Waco. David Spence was almost certainly innocent of the crime for which he died. I calculated his actual innocence score to be 90.

Anthony Melendez is alive, serving two life sentences in Texas. He was convicted for the same crime as Spence, an alleged accomplice. Melendez sold his testimony against Spence to Texas in exchange for his life. It's always a buyer's market when you hold the power of life or death over your potential customers.

Cornelius Dupree and Anthony Massingill are fortunate to now have the attention of The Innocence Project and the Dallas District Attorney's Conviction Integrity Unit. They certainly don't need the help of a little known blogger.

David Wayne Spence is dead. There's nothing anyone can do to help him.

Anthony Melendez is alive, serving two life sentences for a crime he almost certainly didn't commit. Everyone has forgotten about him, or has never heard of him. Perhaps I'll spend some time this year writing about his case.

The Skeptical Juror Scoops the NY Times

Way back on 16 May, I suggested that Rick Perry hopes to be president some day. It wasn't a particularly insightful prediction, but unless I predict the obvious, I am too frequently wrong.

Now the New York Times is jumping on the bandwagon that I already jumped on seven months ago. The Grey Lady just published "Re-elected Texas Governor Sounding Like a Candidate."

Mr. Perry’s decision to keep up his attacks on the Obama administration, right after a grueling re-election campaign and with a book tour to give him a national platform, has fueled speculation that he is testing the waters for a presidential run in 2012.

Those whispers grew louder in Texas last weekend when he declined to commit to serving out his four-year term.

But the governor insisted his only goal was to spur “a national conversation” over whether the federal government has become too powerful, too expensive and too intrusive in people’s lives.

Wow! Not only did The New York Times build a persuasive case that Rick Perry intends to run for President, Rick Perry denied it!  It must be true. We need to get some of those crack NYT investigative journalists looking into the case of Frances Elaine Newton or Johnny Frank Garrett or David Wayne Spence or many of the other Firstname Middlename Lastname people executed in Texas under the careful eye of past President George W. Bush or future President James Richard "Rick" Perry.

(Sorry. That last sentence got away from me a little bit.)

For those of you concerned that we might be executing too many innocent people in this country, here's the takeaway segment from the NYT in-depth analysis.

The tendency of people to “vote with their feet” is the surest guarantee of personal liberty, Mr. Perry concludes. States should be laboratories of government policy, he says.

“If you don’t support the death penalty and citizens packing a pistol, don’t come to Texas,” he writes. “If you don’t like medicinal marijuana and gay marriage, don’t move to California.”

"If you don't support the death penalty ... don't come to Texas." I don't think it's going to fit on a campaign button.

Texas Death Penalty on Trial: Judge Fine Sets a Date

I wrote of Judge Kevin Fine first in Now For Another Cosmic Moment after he granted a hearing to the defense team for John Green. The defense team had argued their client should not be subject to the death penalty because the death penalty was unconstitutional. Judge Fine, admitting to his concern that Texas had probably already executed innocent people, scheduled a hearing. Texas appealed and lost.

Now I learn from My Fox Houston that Judge Kevin Fine has scheduled the hearing for November 8 and expects that the hearing might last two weeks. The article was only four paragraphs long. I like the last one best.

Prosecutors say they are not opposed to a hearing [that] looks at the constitutionality of the death penalty law, but object to any hearing that would look at whether Texas has executed an innocent person.

The prosecutors were previously opposed to looking into the constitutionality of the death penalty, but apparently changed their opinion after the appellate court ruled against them. And I will bet dollars to doughnut holes that the prosecutors deeply and sincerely object to any hearing that would consider whether Texas has executed an innocent person.

Particularly so if that person is Cameron Todd Willingham or Shaka Sankofa (both of whom I have yet to write about), or Johnny Frank Garrett, or David Wayne Spence, or Robert Nelson Drew, or Carlos DeLuna, or Odell Barnes, or a long list of others I intend to document in this blog.

Certainly had Tim Cole not died on death row before Texas could execute him, certainly had he not succumbed of asthma before Texas could plunge lethal chemicals into his arm, certainly then the prosecution would object to discussing his case as well.

Actual Innocence Scorecard: What Good Is It?

Previously, I introduced the concept of an Actual Innocence Scorecard and discussed the meaning of an Actual Innocence Score. In this post, I'll give an example of the value of such scoring.

Northwestern University has a web page listing 39 individuals executed though possibly innocent. You can't help but run across that page multiple times if you are researching the subject of wrongful executions. I'll give you the money quote from that page, and I'll include that portion of the list consisting only of those Texas may have wrongfully executed.