Dennis Fritz and Ron Williamson, innocent men exonerated in 1999The most prominent arguement that I can think of against the death penalty is that, should an innocent person be executed, that mistake can never be made right.
Supporters of the death penalty will say that, what with forensic science the way it is now, the likelihood of this happening is not even worth bothering about. But I tell you this is WRONG!
There are documented cases of such mistakes.
Case 1: On December 22nd 1978, a young girl was murdered in Russia. She would become the first victim of Andrei Chikatilo, the infamous ‘red ripper’. However, an innocent man called Kravchenko was found guilty of the murder – despite being only twenty-five when a witness to the murder reported the suspect as being ‘middle-aged’. Kravchenko was executed in 1984. By this point, the real murderer had killed at least sixteen more times.
Case 2: In 1982, a 21 year old cocktail waitress was abused and murdered in the town of Ada, Oklahoma. After five years, the police were no closer to solving the case so, for reasons that are still not clear, they suspected two men – Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz. The two men were charged with capital murder in 1987. A case was built against them based on junk science and the phony testimonies of crooks and jailhouse snitches. Somehow, miraculously, the prosecution gained two guilty verdicts. Fritz – whose guilt was even less fathomable than Williamson’s – received a life sentence. Williamson was sent to death row.
Luckily, in this case, justice prevailed – however, it did not happen nearly as fast as it should have. Both men spent about ten years in prison for another man’s murder! At one point, Williamson came within 5 days of the needle! What’s worse is that the state of Oklahoma even attempted to execute a man as insane as Ron. The good news is that both men were exonerated in 1999, but this case demonstrates perfectly that we have a flawed system, and a flawed system will kill innocent men!
(Thank you to ScofieldBurrows for her tireless effort in researching and writing up these case files!)
