Book might make you rethink the death penalty

Recently, my wife and I stayed at a bed and breakfast in Pennsylvania. The next morning at breakfast, while talking with friends from Delaware, we met a man who was taking his niece to various colleges in the region.

It turned out the man was a lawyer who had worked on death penalty cases. As you may know, Milton native and Cape Henlopen graduate Bryan Stevenson is one of the best-known death penalty lawyers in the country.

Stevenson heads the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Ala. He has argued before the Supreme Court. He recently appeared on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart to discuss his new book, “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption.”

So I said, “You must have heard of Bryan Stevenson.”

He hadn’t just heard of him. He knew him well. Had worked with him for 10 years, played basketball with him. He considered himself a pretty good ballplayer, but he said Bryan was better.

(I played some soccer with Bryan. He was better than me, too.)

“Well,” I said, “Bryan comes back to Delaware sometimes; what’s your name in case I see him? I’ll tell him I met you.”

“Flood,” he said. “Joe Flood.”

My long-lost Cousin Joe!

Flood isn’t an extremely uncommon name, but I don’t recall actually meeting a Flood who wasn’t a relative. (No, he’s not a cousin, at least not a close one.)

As it happens, the Delaware Legislature may be revisiting the death penalty issue. Last session a death penalty repeal bill squeaked through the state Senate 11-10, with Sen. Ernie Lopez, R-Lewes, voting yes.

It wasn’t the party-line vote you might expect. Sen. Bob Venables, a Laurel Democrat who lost this year to Republican Bryant Richardson, voted against the bill. It never made it out of the House Judiciary Committee.

Recent town meetings in Middletown and Dover, sponsored by groups such as the ACLU and NAACP, have attempted to draw attention to the issue. Police officers from outside Delaware who favor repeal were invited to speak.

I thought about Delaware’s law recently while Helen and I listened to a recording of John Grisham’s “An Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town.”

Grisham - far better known for his fictional legal thrillers - does a masterful job telling the true story of Ron Williamson, a high school baseball standout whose dreams of big league stardom collide with the limits of his talent. He winds up a drunk and a ne’er-do-well, talking up his glory days at the local bars.

But after a young woman is raped and murdered, he makes a handy suspect. A horrible crime has been committed, and the community demands justice. Only in this case, it’s injustice.

Despite a complete lack of physical evidence, Williamson and a friend, Dennis Fritz, are convicted of murder and sent to death row. Grisham also tells of three other Oklahoma men convicted of murder on the flimsiest evidence imaginable.

Williamson and Fritz are eventually exonerated, but only after 18 years on death row. Williamson once came within five days of his execution.

Amazingly, the one and only witness who testified to seeing Williamson at a bar with the murdered woman is the man later convicted of the crime.

It’s hard to believe how badly police and prosecutors bungled the case. I honestly don’t understand how anyone could read this book and not decide the death penalty should be repealed.

I realize not all people would be swayed. After all, this case happened in Oklahoma. We live in Delaware. We have a system of criminal justice here that doesn’t allow that kind of mistake.

As if the citizens of Delaware have been granted a divine power to ascertain a man’s guilt. That’s not even a serious argument, but I’ve had someone tell me that with a straight face.

Pete Schwartzkopf, D-Rehoboth, a retired state trooper, was quoted in the News Journal saying the death penalty should be retained for those convicted of killing a police or correctional officer.

But that just highlights the capriciousness of the death penalty. Is killing a police officer worse than murdering a 2-year-old toddler?

Why are you more likely to get the death penalty if you murder a white person instead of a black person?

Is it fair that people with the wherewithal to hire the best lawyers effectively don’t face the death penalty?

And, finally, mistakes happen. Even in Delaware.