The Wrong Men: America's Epidemic of Wrongful Death Row Convictions

Rating:
Summary: More Background on Florida Post Conviction History:
Review: First an introduction: From 1986 - 1992 I was employed as an investigator at the Office of Capital Collateral Representative (CCR) in Tallahassee, Florida, where Scharlette Holdman worked as the supervisor of the investigators from October 1985 - March 1988.

I have known Scharlette since the mid-1970s death penalty debates at Florida State University, including the debate between Professor Richard L. Rubenstein (author of "After Auschwitz", "My Brother Paul", "The Cunning of History: Mass Death and the American Future", "The Age of Triage", "Religion and Eros", and other books) vs. Baptist Minister and Philosopher Will Campbell (the debate was circa 1977).

Her office, the Clearinghouse on Criminal Justice, was in the same wing of the Petroleum Building as my office at Common Cause in Florida (where I was a full-time volunteer during the day and worked at the Brown Derby Restaurant at night from 1981 - 1986).

The Petroluem Building was next to the State Capital, the Florida Supreme Court and the State Archives and Library. When it was torn down, the space and the space for the first CCR office became the Mary Brogan Art and Science Museum and a storm water retaining pond. The Petroleum Building was called by those of us who worked or volunteered there the "Forces of Good" (FOG) Building -- as opposed to FOE -- Forces of Evil, such as Associated Industries, the Chamber and other big business interests in Florida. The FOG building also included (not an exhaustive list) the Clean Water Action Project, the ACLU, NOW, Florida Legal Services, Migrant Farmworker's Organization (directed by Cliff Thaell, who has more recently been a Leon County Commissioner for about ten years or more), Mike Vasilinda's television news service.

About every two years at CCR there was a Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist-Maoist purge due to the pressures and dysfunctions of the work and the people. I survived two such purges. With the third, I was the first to go in the spring and summer of 1992.

When Scharlette had essentially declared war upon CCR in 1987 and thereafter, some of us decided to investigate her background given some things that we had heard. Low and behold, Scharlette's claim of a PhD in anthropology from the University of Hawaii and a Master's Degree from (if my memory serves me correctly) the University of Birmingham don't exist.

We used Scharlette's Social Security number, her maiden name and her married name -- with all this information, both universities had no record of Scharlette having received any degrees from these institutions.

As I understand Scharlette, she needed the "degrees" to confer upon her "credentials" that she really never needed as she is indeed then and now a national expert on capital mitigation, litigation, etc. However Scharlette can be deceptive, as her lack of a PhD and Masters so demonstrates. Even today she claims to have the degrees as when she gives presentations regarding capital cases, she is identified as "Dr." A key word search of her name will bring up some of the presentations that she has made in the past several years with the title "Dr." preceding her name.

If she has received any honorary or other degrees since 1990, that would be new information for me. If anyone can assist in this matter, please contact me at [e-mail] or my mailing address: P.O. Box 38458, Tallahassee, FL 32315-8458. Thank you.

Rating:
Summary: Re: Florida cases: Roy Swafford and Peter Ventura:
Review: For those interested in reading the four to three vote Florida Supreme Court opinions regarding two more death sentenced persons whose innocence is an authentic issue, please go to www.flcourts.org, then go to "Opinions and Rules", then chose the correct year and scroll down to the following two cases:

Roy Swafford: April 18, 2002 Case No. 92.173

Peter Ventura: May 24, 2001 Case No. 93.839

These two cases are findable under "Court Orders: Case Disposition Orders" and "Briefs in Other Cases" sections of the "Press Page":

Roy Swafford: March 26, 2004 Case Nos. 03.931 and 03.1153

Rating:
Summary: Overwhelming evidence of innocence on death row
Review: I enjoyed this book immensely. It is about persons sent to death row to await execution, but who were later set free due to mistakes in our judicial systems.

The book includes several examples of public servants who serve their own interests by lying and sending innocent people to death row. One story that stands out for me: Earl Charles was convicted for a double murder that took place in 1974 in Savannah, Georgia while he was living and working in Tampa, Florida. According to evidence described in the book, it is apparent that Detective F.W.Wade used perjury and coercion to get the conviction. The thing that saved Charles was that his boss, the manager of a gasoline service station, did not trust him. The boss had asked a deputy sheriff to look in on him from time to time which he did. The sheriff also kept a log which showed that Charles was at work on the day of the murders. When Charles was convicted and sentenced to the electric chair, his former employer and the deputy sheriff came to his rescue at the request of Charles' mother. His conviction was vacated and he was set free after spending 3 years awaiting execution.

The book also contains examples of people who were set free who probably were guilty in reality. Consequently, additional light is shed on how and why our legal system fails. When guilty criminals go free on technicalities, police are motivated to try harder the next time - even to the point of fabricating evidence so as to win instead of lose. The book also concludes that while many innocent people have been freed from death row it is mathematically probable that a high number of innocent people have been executed.

At times I found it depressing. Mitigating my depression was the fact that woven throughout are heroes who stood up for the truth.

The book was sketchy in places. 101 people are freed from death row in 290 pages. That's about 3 pages per person. I would have liked to see a little more depth to rate it 5 stars. Still, there are so many cases, the book has value a reference. It also serves well the notion that these occurrences are not extraordinary, made-for-TV, examples. They happen repeatedly in many states. You have to read it to believe it. The book also demonstrates that our system for capital punishment in the U.S. is still broken as of this writing.