Texas murdered innocent man

Carlos DeLuna murdered by the state and people of Texas
Photograph: Corpus Christi police department

"It 'came to that' the first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent."

The quote is from Spencer Tracy as a composite character of Robert H. Jackson and other jurists in Judgement at Neurenberg (1961), a film worthy of the topic.

A brief interlude from our corrupt governor to note the killing of an innocent man, Carlos DeLuna, by the state of Texas, chronicled by Columbia University law professor James Liebman.

The best coverage has been in England, Ed Pilkington at the Guardian. See also Michael McLaughlin at Huffington, Andrew Cohen at The Atlantic, and the Death Penality Infomation Center.

Self-declared libertarians are silent when the state kills men whom they know to be innocent. Truth is they don't care that much about justice or life. Ron Paul, where is he? Wow, he's silent.

From the Guardian:

A few years ago, Antonin Scalia, one of the nine justices on the US supreme court, made a bold statement. There has not been, he said, "a single case – not one – in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit. If such an event had occurred … the innocent's name would be shouted from the rooftops."

Scalia may have to eat his words. It is now clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit, and his name – Carlos DeLuna – is being shouted from the rooftops of the Columbia Human Rights Law Review. The august journal has cleared its entire spring edition, doubling its normal size to 436 pages, to carry an extraordinary investigation by a Columbia law school professor and his students.