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   From: "@SHAW.CA   
      
   One in 27 people executed in the US is innocent   
      
   By Barry Sheppard   
      
   Last September, Anthony Porter was scheduled to die. He had been   
   on death row since 1983, and his time had come. Today he is free.   
   His case is another in a growing list that demonstrates how the   
   death penalty in the US comes down disproportionately against   
   working-class people, especially blacks.   
      
   Porter is alive only because a professor of journalism, David   
   Protess, at Northwestern University in the suburbs of Chicago,   
   Illinois, assigned his students to investigate his alleged crime.   
      
   Porter's lawyer had heard of Protess, who has encouraged his   
   students before to look into death penalty cases. Three years   
   ago, his class played a leading role in freeing four men wrongly   
   accused of a 1978 gang rape and double murder.   
      
   When Porter's lawyer first contacted Protess last September, the   
   professor was unable to help because the autumn school semester   
   had not yet started. Porter was scheduled to be murdered by the   
   state on September 25, three days before the start of classes.   
      
   Porter was then granted a stay of execution so that his lawyer   
   could present evidence that Porter, who is retarded, was not   
   mentally competent enough to be put to death. This delay allowed   
   Protess to assign his students to look into the case.   
      
   They not only found evidence that Porter was framed by the   
   police, but also recorded a confession by the real killer. The   
   main witness against Porter told the student sleuths that he had   
   seen Porter in the vicinity of the crime, but that he did not see   
   him fire the fatal shots. He also said that the real killer held   
   the pistol in his left hand. Porter is right-handed.   
      
   In a sworn affidavit, the witness said he was "threatened,   
   harassed and intimidated" by the cops into pinning the crime on   
   Porter.   
      
   Protess said he accepted the case for his class because there   
   seemed to be "evidence of innocence", specifically an assertion   
   by the mother of one of the victims that she believed Porter was   
   not guilty because she had last seen her daughter leave for the   
   park where she was killed in the company of the man who now has   
   confessed to the crime.   
      
   Porter is the 10th person scheduled to die to be released in   
   Illinois since the death penalty was reinstated there in 1977 --   
   out of a total of 23 death row prisoners! In Florida, 18 people   
   have been released since that state reintroduced the death   
   penalty in 1973.   
      
   One in 27 people executed in the US is later proven to be innocent.   
      
   Early this year, the state of Oklahoma killed Sean Sellers for a   
   crime he committed when he was 16. He was the 10th juvenile   
   offender executed in the US in this decade, more than in Saudi   
   Arabia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Iran combined -- the only other   
   countries that are known to execute child offenders. Sellers had   
   a multiple-personality disorder as a result of a brain injury he   
   suffered as a child, a fact the jury that convicted him was   
   unaware of.   
      
   Last November at Northwestern University, 23 of the 73 men and   
   two women who have been released from death row since 1972 told   
   their stories at a public meeting.   
      
   Black artist Dennis Williams was on death row for 17 years. "Had   
   the state of Illinois gotten its way, I'd be dead today",   
   Williams said.   
      
   That statement floated through the hall 23 times. Walter   
   McMillian, released after six years on death row in Alabama,   
   recounted how he lost his logging business and his marriage.   
   Sonia Jacobs went to prison as a wife and mother -- when she was   
   released she was a widow and a grandmother.   
      
   You can imagine the damage done to these people, not only because   
   of the time lost in their lives, but as a result of spending that   
   time with the knowledge of their impending doom a constant horror.   
      
   The death penalty is a barbaric relic in any case. That it has   
   been reinstated in the United States is a measure of how   
   "civilised" this country is. But when the bias against the poor   
   and minorities that is part and parcel of the system of "justice"   
   in the US is factored in, the criminal nature of that barbaric   
   relic is compounded and magnified.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)