'Chic Tribune' Series Suggests Innocent Man Was Executed

By: Greg Mitchell For several years, the many cases of prisoners released from Death Row after DNA or other evidence cleared them of murders have drawn wide attention, suggesting to some that capital punishment should be abolished. Others have pointed out that there has not yet emerged a documented case of a certifiably innocent inmate wrongly put to death. One thing or another, they say, always seems to keep the innocent from taking that final walk to the death chamber.

During the past few years, several major newspapers have searched for an innocent man put to death, even sponsoring DNA tests in a couple of cases, to no avail. Today, however, the Chicago Tribune has put forth perhaps the most compelling case yet.

The Tribune is the same paper that ran several groundbreaking series starting in 1999 on wrongly imprisoned inmates, helping lead to the current moratorium on executions in Illinois.

Today it began a three-part series on the execution of Carlos DeLuna, written by Maurice Possley and Steve Mills. Part I is headed: "New evidence suggests a 1989 execution in Texas was a case of mistaken identity." The Web site also carries audio, video, photos, maps, timelines and transcripts.

Here is the paper's overall intro, which points out that the Tribune has also been looking "at problems in Texas' death penalty system. In 2004, it revealed the faulty science behind the arson investigation that led to the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham. Last year, a Houston Chronicle investigation cast serious doubt on the evidence that sent Ruben Cantu to the death chamber.

"The Tribune learned of Carlos De Luna, who was executed in 1989 for a murder in Corpus Christi, after James Liebman, a professor at Columbia Law School in New York City, contacted the newspaper.

"Liebman has co-authored studies that found high rates of court reversals due to serious error in capital cases. In subsequent research with students on behalf of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, he came across the De Luna case. Liebman asked a private investigator to go to Corpus Christi and look into De Luna's claim during his trial that another man was the real killer.

"A woman told the investigator the other man had bragged about committing the murder. Believing De Luna's execution was worth a deeper look, Liebman contacted the Tribune."

The start of the series can be found at www.chicagotribune.com

An Associated Press summary of the series follows.
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Carlos De Luna was executed 16 years ago for the fatal stabbing of Wanda Lopez, a gas station clerk and a single mother. De Luna was swiftly convicted and sentenced to death even though the parolee proclaimed he was innocent. He identified another man as the killer.

The Chicago Tribune, in the first of a three-part series published Sunday, said it has uncovered evidence strongly suggesting that De Luna's acquaintance, Carlos Hernandez, was the one who killed Lopez. Hernandez died in 1999.

Hernandez's friends and relatives, ending years of silence, said the felon bragged that De Luna went to Death Row for a murder he committed. The case was compromised by shaky eyewitness investigation, sloppy police work and a failure to thoroughly pursue Hernandez as
a possible suspect, the newspaper reported.

De Luna's prosecutors maintain the right man was convicted, though the lead prosecutor acknowledged being troubled by some of the new information. A former police detective said he now believes the wrong man was executed.

No DNA or other conclusive proof of De Luna's guilt or innocence is available. The store did not have a security camera. The newspaper learned of the De Luna case from a Columbia University law professor who had begun to look into evidence pointing to Hernandez.

The possibility of De Luna's innocence played no role in his final appeal, which focused on his lawyers' failure to present mitigating evidence at his sentencing.

The day after the killing, a man who lived near where De Luna was arrested found a white shirt and shoes that apparently belonged to him. The clothes and shoes, as well as swabs from his face, were sent to the state crime lab for testing. No blood was found. De Luna was executed by lethal injection in 1989.