Human Rights : Feds shake faith in death penalty - News about religious cults and sects

May 15, 2001 -- FBI Director Louis Freeh did what Pope John Paul II has not been able to do: turn this law-and-order Catholic conservative against the death penalty.

Timothy McVeigh's guilt is unquestionable, as is the gravity of his crime. If ever there were a case where it was important for the government to play by the rules, it was this one.

And still, they fumbled.

To be sure, the 3,000 pages of documents the FBI failed to turn over to McVeigh's lawyers will not exonerate him. McVeigh did it. He admits he did it. He deserves to die.

That's not the same as saying the state should put killers to death. After the McVeigh debacle, who can trust our government to administer capital punishment?

We know all about McVeigh's saga. But what of the anonymous cases where the defendant's guilt is less obvious, and law enforcement feels less of an obligation to do things by the book?

Consider the shocking scandal unfolding in Oklahoma City, of all places, involving the work of police chemist Joyce Gilchrest.

Over 14 years, the state won hundreds of felony convictions based in part on her expert testimony. But she has long been criticized for sloppy work.

Last week, a judge released a convicted rapist who had been behind bars for 15 years after an independent lab analysis contradicted her findings.

At least that poor sod has his life. Eleven men have been executed for convictions won partly on the basis of Gilchrest's testimony. Twelve others sit on death row. The state is investigating.

We have long known that racism, corruption, poverty, incompetence and plain old human fallibility make it possible, even likely, that an innocent man will die at the hands of the state. That fact has given many death-penalty supporters doubts.

So why is McVeigh a tipping point? I can't say for sure, but there's something about the psychology of this case that magnifies the FBI's relatively insignificant error. If they screw up even with McVeigh . . .

That sets a hairline crack in the foundation of our justice system, one that collapses the rock-solid faith in it one must have if one is to support state-sanctioned killing.

In the end, McVeigh will probably be executed, and justice will have been done. On that day, I won't feel any compassion for the guy, but I will feel terrible for those unknown innocents yet to be executed so we could be free to whack Tim McVeigh.

Think of men like Anthony Faison and Charles Shepard, who were freed from prison yesterday after someone else confessed to a 1987 murder that sent them up the river - and a key state witness admitted to lying on the stand.

Had they been convicted in a death-penalty state, which New York was not at the time, they might be dead today.
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