DNA's Part in Death Sentences

(Roger Coleman left guilty, Damon Thibodeaux right innocent. DNA is a two edge sword)

by Clarence Ness

It's difficult to understand the mind of those who would take another persons life, and usually it's only the most brutal of murderers who end up on death row.

Since the advent of DNA discover the list of death row inmates who have been proved innocent of the crime they were on death row for has grown. The Innocence Project has tracked the exoneration's via DNA. Since 1989 there has been 325 convictions overturned by DNA evidence. Of those 325 exoneration's 20 have spent time on death row.


However, DNA is a two edge sword. Time magazine ran an article a few weeks before convicted rapist and murderer Roger Coleman was to be executed questioning his conviction.  After his execution, then Governor Warner ordered new DNA tests because the ones that convicted him were not as accurate. When the tests came back they proved Coleman's guilt.

In another case, a convicted murderer was on death row for 15 years before DNA evidence proved beyond a shadow of doubt that he was not the person responsible for the brutal rape and murder of his 14-year-old step-cousin. After hours of being interrogated, Damon Thibodeaux told the investigators, 
 “I didn’t know that I had done it,” Thibodeaux said at one point, according to a police transcript. “But I done it.”

Before that day was over, Thibodeaux had recanted his confession, telling his court-appointed lawyer that he told police what they wanted to hear in response to threats of death by lethal injection and his grief over the death of his cousin. Nonetheless, Thibodeaux was later convicted of both crimes and sentenced to die. 15 years later DNA proved his innocence.

It's reports like this that should makes us all take pause as to our stance on the death penalty. Obviously not all death row inmates are innocent, but we do know that there is ample evidence that not all are the brutal murderers we are led to believe.

Is it time to end death sentencing in America? Many believe it is long past time. However, if the death sentence is abolished then we also need to have a serious discussion about being sure that every state has sentencing guidelines that will ensure the public's safety. Those who are guilty of brutally murdering others should be forced to spend the rest of their natural life locked up so our society is safe from their menacing acts of brutality.

Executions For January 2015

Stay of Executions For January 2015