National Conference on Wrongful Convictions and the Death Penalty November 13

National Conference on Wrongful Convictions and the Death Penalty
November 13-15, 1998
Northwestern University Legal Clinic
Chicago, Illinois

Since we started this website in 1995, we've heard about a lot of really unbelievable travesties of justice involving the death penalty. So when we heard about this conference where we could meet the 75 people who have been sentenced to death by the U.S. Government and then found innocent, we decided it was worth an excursion to the Windy City.

We did this with some trepidation since a lot of our negative email comes from anti-death penalty fanatics. They seem to be troubled by our irreverent attitude toward capital punishment. We weren't sure who we would meet at the conference or what their reaction to the electric chair website would be.

Our fears were unfounded. This was absolutely one of the coolest events we've ever been to (and we've been to the death house...) There were some very nifty celebrities in attendance. But the most amazing people at the conference were the thirty or so death row survivors who came to tell their stories.

We describe below our experiences at the conference and some of the people who were there.

People Who Were at the Conference (in order of when we saw them)

Greta Van Susteren - First of all, she is much more beautiful in person than on TV. She is really really gorgeous. But even more so, everything she said was incredibly intelligent. Plus she seemed very humble. For example, we noticed this really good looking woman sitting just a few seats away from us in the auditorium. It was Greta, just sitting with everyone. She didn't seem to expect the standard "star treatment."

Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky - These are the guys who made the documentary "Paradise Lost - The Robin Hood Hill Murders." In case you haven't seen it, it is about 3 teenagers down South who listened to Metallica a lot and ended up getting convicted of murdering 3 little boys. Berlinger and Sinofsky thought the teenagers were guilty when they first started making the film, but eventually came to believe they are innocent. They are now making a follow-up, to be called something like "Paradise Regained." These guys also seemed really down-to-earth.Their movie is the most compelling use of Metallica's music we've ever encountered.

Sonia Jacobs - She is the widow of Jesse Tafero, whose head burst into flames when he was executed in Florida's electric chair in 1990. Sonia was also put on death row, but fortunately was not executed before it was found that some of the prosecution's witnesses had, in fact, lied. She was eventually freed, thanks mainly to the help of Micki Dickoff, Sonia's childhood friend and a film maker. Dickoff also spoke at the conference about "In the Blink of an Eye," the film she made about helping Sonia get off of death row, It was pretty amazing to hear Sonia Jacobs' story since we have recently been given some highly classified documents which showed Jesse Tafero was tortured to death. This is barbaric even if he was guilty, but how do we explain that happening to an innocent man???

Barry Scheck - Scheck was speaking about The Innocence Project, which he runs at the Cardozo Law School. He was speaking in this really fancy law school room where everyone sat in their own little booth with a desk. We got there late and had to walk all the way to the back, very conspicuously. After a few minutes, it became clear that his lecture was geared to legal professionals, i.e., much of it was going over our head. So we decided to leave, which was a good decision, since we ended up going to hear the story of Jay Smith, a death row survivor. Still, it was kind of interesting and somehow weirdly satisfying to walk out on Barry Scheck.

Jay Smith - Mr. Smith had already been talking for a while when I walked in. I refer to him as "Mr. Smith" because he was not your typical ex-Death Row prisoner. In fact, Jay Smith had been a high school principal in Pennsylvania when his nightmare began. As he was talking, he mentioned a problem with writer Joseph Wambaugh, and then it dawned on me. Jay Smith was the guy in Wambaugh's Echoes in the Darkness, which I had read. Wambaugh's book had strengthened my feeling that school principals are, for the most part, jerks. So I felt like kind of a jerk myself when I found out that Smith was later shown to be innocent. A state police trooper had lied and hidden evidence. Smith was erudite and able to speak of his experience with great insight, and even, at times, humor. We believed Mr. Smith when he said he was the kind of high school principal who would have kept us in line.

Robert Meeropol - Meeropol is one of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg's two sons. He spoke about how it felt hearing about his parents' execution when he was 6 years old . He explained how even though he didn't consciously understand what was happening, instinctually the situation was completely clear to him. Today he is the executive director of the Rosenberg Fund for Children, which helps children whose parents run into similar problem with the government.

Mike Farrell - This guy looked really familiar but we couldn't place him. It turns out he was the other guy on the TV show "Mash." Trapper John, we think. We're not sure. He's very active in anti-death penalty stuff, especially in California. He seemed like a nice guy.

Jim Neuhard - This guy isn't famous, but he had some really good stuff to say about why the death penalty is a bad thing. He is the director of the Michigan State Appellate Defender's Office. Michigan was the first state in the U.S. to abolish the death penalty and it is still resisting the current trend to reinstate it. So it seems like Neuhard and his colleagues are worth paying attention to.

Bill Pelke - Pelke is head of the Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation. My recollection is that his grandmother was murdered and the people who did it were convicted and sentenced to die. Pelke was very angry and in favor of the death penalty, but he realized that his grandmother would have wanted mercy shown to her killers. So he changed his mind and started campaigning against the death penalty. He was a really tough guy who said that he had just retired from thirty years working at Bethlehem Steel. He said that he spent his retirement bonus on a bus for his organization's activities.

Piers Bannister - He is the head researcher on the death penalty for Amnesty International. He is from London. He was a very informative and entertaining speaker. He pointed out some shocking facts, such as the United States is one of the only five countries in the world that refuses to sign a treaty banning the execution of children under 18 years old. The other countries are places like Somalia that don't really have governments and are run by war lords.

Rolando Cruz - Cruz introduced Rubin "Hurricane" Carter. Cruz was on death row for 10 years in Illinois. He was tried and convicted twice and both convictions were overturned. Just before he was to be tried for the third time (!!!), his innocence was proven by DNA testing. Criminal indictments have been issued against three former prosecutors and four sheriff's deputies, charging them with perjury, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy to frame Rolando Cruz. Sometimes Cruz seemed very bitter about what happened to him. He said that even though he hadn't been executed, they had killed him. But he wasn't always serious. For example, when he was telling how Rubin Carter had come to be his friend when he was on death row, he began by saying, "I was going through a difficult time..." Then he caught himself in this profound understatement and corrected himself, saying that it was an especially difficult time in the middle of a difficult time. You had to be there.

Rubin "Hurricane" Carter - Hurricane Carter was just so cool. He is the boxer immortalized by the Bob Dylan song and soon to be played by Denzell Washington in the upcoming movie. Carter was falsely arrested and convicted of murders just before he was about to become the middleweight champion of the world. In his speech he said at one point "Let me invite you to dinner." It turned out to be a symbolic thing, but we would have loved to hang out with this guy. He was so cool.

Maria Bentley - She is the niece of Derek Bentley, who was wrongly convicted in England and hanged. (There was a movie made about this. We can't remember the name right now ("Let Him Have It"?) but we're checking...) She told for how so many years her mother had worked to show that her brother was, in fact, innocent. Just recently the government of England officially admitted that a mistake had been made.Unfortunately, Maria Bentley's mother had passed away the year before and didn't get to see this. Maria Bentley was carrying on her mother's legacy. Obviously, we are not sentimental here at The Electric Chair.com, but this woman's story was so moving that tears welled up in out eyes.

Carl Lawson - This poor man was accused and convicted of killing an eight-year-old boy. He spent six years on death row and went through two trials before he was acquitted of all charges on the third. He emphasized how horrible it felt to be accused of the heinous crime of killing a child.

David Keaton - David Keaton was sentenced to death in Florida when he was convicted of killing a police officer during an armed robbery. His conviction was based on a confession was which was obtained throught threats, lies, and beatings. When the trial judge reviewed the case based on the facts without the confession, the judge dismissed all charges. David Keaton told how he had gotten in with a bad crowd and committed some crimes, but said that he had never killed anyone. He believed that justice would prevail. Keaton's honesty was very compelling.

Muneer Deeb - Deeb was convicted in Texas and served eight years. He had come to America from Jordan and was studying to become a computer programmer. A cop whom Deeb knew from a local bar had bad feelings toward Arabs and when three people were murdered, this detective began to relentlessly pursue Muneer Deeb. He was arrested and convicted and sentenced to death. Deeb's story was such a nightmare. He couldn't believe that the system would convict him since he was innocent. He believed that his court-appointed lawyers would represent him so that justice would be served. Finally he figured out how the system actually worked and decided to represent himself. The prosecution's witnesses, two jailhouse informants, were discredited and Deeb was freed. Of all the stories, I think this was the most compelling. Coming from a foreign country, Deeb believed in the American ideal. His family had been persecuted in Jordan and he came here full of hope. It was just so sad to hear what happened to him. He seemed like a nice guy.

Randall Dale Adams - Adams' case was the subject of the Errol Morris film "Thin Blue Line." The film led to a new investigation and a new trial. All charges against Adams were dropped. Adams gave a speech in which he said that he really wanted to be out of the public eye. But he said that he didn't like how things were going in this country and therefore he feels compelled to speak publicly against the death penalty.

There were many many other interesting people and speeches. Again we emphasize that this was a totally cool event. Even the food was excellent. We hope they hold it again next year.