One Man's Guilt Doesn't Validate All Executions

Never mind any of it. Last week, a DNA test confirmed that Roger
Coleman did indeed commit the crime for which the state of Virginia executed
him in 1992, the rape and murder of his sister-in-law Wanda McCoy, 11
years before.

For those who believed in Coleman's innocence, to say nothing of those
who simply believe capital punishment an unwieldy, unfair and
uncivilized way of punishing crime, the news is a bitter blow. Some had imagined
Coleman's might be the case that put a human face on the death
penalty's fallibility and the potential consequences thereof.

Instead, the only thing proven is that Coleman, in addition to being a
rapist and murderer, was also a con artist and liar.

If proof of his guilt is disappointing to those who oppose capital
punishment, one imagines it is received more warmly by death penalty
advocates, particularly those in the gubernatorial and prosecutorial offices
of Virginia. The state's criminal justice system stands vindicated.

Virginia Resisted

It is telling, though, that Virginia resisted for years allowing the
sophisticated DNA testing, unavailable during Coleman's lifetime, that
conclusively proved his guilt. This, even though a coalition of
newspapers and an anti-death penalty group offered to pick up the tab. The state
fought them all the way to its Supreme Court. After the court ruled in
Virginia's favor and the coalition asked Gov. Mark Warner to authorize
testing on his own authority, he dithered for four years before finally
giving approval.

Point being, Virginia's reluctance to allow the test suggests the state
had less than maximum confidence in its outcome. Would you resist
something you knew would prove you right?

While I can commiserate with those who worked on Coleman's behalf and
feel personally betrayed by him, the larger community of death penalty
opponents has as little reason to feel chagrined by these results as
death penalty advocates have to celebrate them. The inevitable has only
been forestalled, not denied.

Since 1973, more than 120 people have been released from Death Row
after being proven wrongly convicted. In November, The Houston Chronicle
reported that Texas likely erred in 1993 when it executed a man named
Ruben Cantu for robbery and murder. The only witness to the crime now says
he identified Cantu wrongly, under pressure from police. The man who
was supposedly Cantu's partner says Cantu was not with him.

A Matter of Time

So it is only a matter of time before someone is proven, to a
scientific certainty, to have been executed for a crime he did not commit. How
can it be otherwise? How can we believe a system conceived by human
beings can work without flaw? Or that all mistakes are caught before it is
too late?

Not a chance.

Someone will die -- probably already has -- because of a lying cop, a
bad lawyer, a mean judge, a botched investigation. But most of all,
because some of us prefer to close our eyes to the obvious, be narcotized
by denial, sleep in the unearned assurance that the system works for
everybody, always.

It had been thought -- and hoped -- that Roger Coleman would be the
wake-up call. He is not.

But someone will be.

And when it happens, those who support capital punishment will have to
explain why this was an acceptable death, why an innocent life taken in
our name ought not give us pause, ought not bring us shame, ought not
make us ill.

Against that day, I have two words of advice for advocates of
state-sanctioned killing:

Sleep well

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© 2006 Miami Herald