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Texas executed an innocent man, columbia university team says by 123wert sdfsf
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Texas executed an innocent man, columbia university team says |
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In 1983 and during the appeals process, officials handling DeLuna's case saw the opposite -- a slam-dunk conviction. Theprosecution and the court-appointed defense lawyer didn't put muchstock in De Luna's claim that Hernandez plunged a knife intoLopez's chest. Record-keeping was so lax there's no clear evidencethe gas station was robbed during the slaying, Liebman said. In trying to clear his name, De Luna didn't help himself. Formonths after his arrest, he refused to reveal the name of the realkiller, because he feared Hernandez.
His credibility plummeted whenother parts of his alibi for the night of the murder were disprovenby the prosecutor. The fateful night began, according to De Luna, when he went to askating rink, where he met Hernandez and two sisters. De Lunaadmitted that he was near the gas station later, but said he wasacross the street in a bar. While he nursed his drink, Hernandezbought cigarettes in the Shamrock.
He said he emerged from the barto see Hernandez fighting with Lopez. Hearing police sirens, hesaid he fled, because he didn't want to get into trouble. The prosecution, however, discredited De Luna's version of events.One of the sisters who was allegedly with him at the rink testifiedthat she was at her baby shower that night. "I had blown his alibi to bits," said Steve Schiwetz, one of theprosecutors.
A guilty verdict was reached with little delay. The capital murdertrial lasted six days in July 1983. "I'm open to the argument that somebody named Carlos Hernandezreally did it," said Schiwetz, "but everything I know confirms theoriginal impression that De Luna did it." The apparent random targeting of Lopez wasn't Hernandez's style,Schiwetz said. Hernandez's tendency was to unleash violence on thehis girlfriends and wife, not strangers, he said.
In 1986,Hernandez was accused of murdering another woman with a knife, butthe case was dismissed. Several of Hernandez' family members interviewed for the ColumbiaUniversity report said pictures of the murder weapon found at thegas station looked like the knife Hernandez habitually kept withhim. In all of De Luna's numerous arrests, police never found himcarrying a blade, according to the Columbia report. The relatives' portrait of Hernandez's disheveled appearance gelledwith a description of the suspect seen fleeing the conveniencestore.
Witness Kevan Baker said the killer looked like a"derelict," wearing a flannel jacket and gray sweatshirt.Hernandez's relatives said he often wore a flannel coat. De Lunawas fastidious with his appearance and always wore black slacks anddress shirts, the report said. Liebman sought more scientific proof. Fingerprints taken from theknife and cigarette pack found at the crime scene were sent to aformer Scotland Yard investigator for comparison with Hernandez'sprints. But the evidence had been so poorly collected by police,Liebman said, that the results were inconclusive.
The Columbia University team's report, more than 400 pages long,also is a biography of the central players, emphasizing thetroubled upbringings and hard-drinking adulthoods of De Luna andHernandez. Liebman learned about De Luna roughly 10 years ago, when he beganexamining convictions in which a single eyewitness testified. As heand a student delved into the files, they became convinced De Lunawasn't guilty. They turned over their findings to the Chicago Tribune which published a three-part series in 2006 that found evidencesuggesting Hernandez killed Lopez. Multiple people told the Tribune that Hernandez -- who died in 1999 in prison from cirrhosis of theliver -- had confessed to killing her.
Revisiting questions about Lopez's death would be too painful, hernephews said. "That's something our family has had to deal with," Louis Vargastold The Huffington Post. "We've had closure with it and we don'twant to reopen it. We believe the justice system did what it had todo." One of De Luna's attorneys, James Lawrence, told HuffPost hedoesn't count him among the clients who've been wrongfully accusedof capital crimes.
"The fact that he wouldn't help us and this was his life on theline -- that's the one thing that kept bothering the livingdaylights out of me," Lawrence said. Since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976,there have been 1,295 executions, according to the Death PenaltyInformation Center. Texas leads with 482 executions. The ease with which De Luna was prosecuted and the obscurity of hisdeath are what makes his case so important, said Liebman. "There are many cases out there that nobody has ever looked at andare probably at risk of innocence," said Liebman.
"It's acautionary tale about the risks we take when we have the deathpenalty.". I am a professional writer from Business Services, which contains a great deal of information about clean air ducts , taurine energy drinks, welcome to visit!
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