{"id":1351,"date":"2006-01-18T20:14:22","date_gmt":"2006-01-19T00:14:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/?p=1351"},"modified":"2006-01-18T20:14:22","modified_gmt":"2006-01-19T00:14:22","slug":"stolen-innocence-death-penalty-foes-make-easy-marks-for-vicious-murderers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2006\/01\/stolen-innocence-death-penalty-foes-make-easy-marks-for-vicious-murderers\/","title":{"rendered":"Stolen Innocence: Death penalty foes make easy marks for vicious murderers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.opinionjournal.com\/extra\/?id=110007827\">Wall Street Opinion Journal<\/a>  BRIDGET JOHNSON Wednesday, January 18, 2006<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This man might be innocent; this man is due to die,&#8221; blared the May 18, 1992, cover of Time magazine. &#8220;Roger Keith Coleman was convicted of killing his sister-in-law in 1982. The courts have refused to hear the evidence that could save him.&#8221; Accompanying the text was a full-cover photo of a shackled Coleman, looking morose in prison garb.<\/p>\n<p>Before Coleman was sent to the electric chair two days later for the rape, stabbing and near-beheading of 19-year-old Wanda McCoy, his protestations of innocence had put an anti-death-penalty PR machine firmly in his corner. This man with a previous history of attempted rape became a cause c\u00e9l\u00e8bre telling his woeful tale of justice gone awry. &#8220;An innocent man is going to be murdered tonight,&#8221; he declared before his electrocution.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\nA dramatic sound bite that proved hollow last week, when new DNA testing ordered by Virginia&#8217;s Gov. Mark Warner proved Coleman&#8217;s guilt. James McCloskey of Centurion Ministries, who had spent nearly two decades trying to prove Coleman&#8217;s innocence, was befuddled, asking the Washington Post: &#8220;How can somebody, with such equanimity, such dignity, such quiet confidence, make those his final words even though he is guilty?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It happens all the time. Killers rally sympathetic activists behind them by using the manipulative skills that are integral to their criminal careers.<\/p>\n<p>. . . <a href=\"http:\/\/www.opinionjournal.com\/extra\/?id=110007827\">more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wall Street Opinion Journal BRIDGET JOHNSON Wednesday, January 18, 2006 &#8220;This man might be innocent; this man is due to die,&#8221; blared the May 18, 1992, cover of Time magazine. &#8220;Roger Keith Coleman was convicted of killing his sister-in-law in 1982. The courts have refused to hear the evidence that could save him.&#8221; Accompanying the &#8230; <a title=\"Stolen Innocence: Death penalty foes make easy marks for vicious murderers\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2006\/01\/stolen-innocence-death-penalty-foes-make-easy-marks-for-vicious-murderers\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Stolen Innocence: Death penalty foes make easy marks for vicious murderers\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1319,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1319"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1351\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}