
What It’s Like to Almost Get Executed - samclemens
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2016/03/31/what-it-s-like-to-almost-get-executed#.jTmiocXwQ
======
CapitalistCartr
In the United States, innocence has never been grounds for an appeal, a stay,
overturning, or clemency. Here in Florida, I could write an accurate algorithm
for calculating the application of the Death Penalty. Skin darkness
(literally, not race), IQ, wealth, sex are the relevant factors. The elements
of the case are not.

I'm not against the Death Penalty on general principle grounds; I'm against it
because we clearly aren't to be trusted with it.

~~~
rayiner
Actual innocence is a grounds for vacating a conviction.

~~~
CapitalistCartr
In the USA, innocence isn't grounds for an appeal. Actual, post-conviction DNA
tests aren't a basis. Errors at trial are. So good lawyers find one. Jury
instructions, evidentiary errors, procedural, etc., which is why money buys
justice.

~~~
switch007
Just going to jump in here and point out rayiner is an appellate lawyer.

~~~
barrkel
Indeed he may be, but the case of Herrera v. Collins is pretty clear - laws
are about procedures, not facts. If someone has been found guilty in a trial,
and there were no flaws in the prodecures followed, then it is not
unconstitutional to follow through with the punishment, even if later evidence
shows the person is innocent.

More importantly, it would be procedurally problematic if convicted criminals
could appeal on the basis of a claim of innocence, even if it's due to new
evidence. Following procedures is more important than getting at the truth. (I
conjecture it's because getting at the truth is unreasonably difficult. For
example, there's no guarantee that a subsequent trial will be more reliable
than the original.)

~~~
Spooky23
Convictions get vacated when an alternate perpetrator is identified or
confesses.

~~~
ptaipale
Still, that alternate confession must be credible. For high-profile crimes,
there often seem to be dozens of alternate confessions, and they are usually
obviously untrue so they should not be grounds for appeal of the convicted.

The hard part is how to establish that alternate confessions or new evidence
are really significant (as they indeed sometimes are).

------
gtrubetskoy
Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote some of his most significant works after his execution
by firing squad was stayed at the last minute.

[http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fyodor-
dostoevsky...](http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fyodor-dostoevsky-
is-sentenced-to-death)

There is a vivid description of his experience in the novel "The Idiot", you
can read it here:
[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2638/old/20081222-2638.txt](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2638/old/20081222-2638.txt),
search for: "As to life in a prison"

Or see it here with English subtitles:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYN40R9Hjtg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYN40R9Hjtg)

Edit: s/began writing/wrote some of his most significant works/ (thank you
dang)

~~~
dang
> _began writing_

Oh no, he'd published two novels before that, both significant, but for
different reasons. _Poor Folk_ was a maudlin debut but it made him the hottest
new writer in Russia, briefly. Belinsky, the biggest critic of the day,
famously kissed him when they were introduced.

Now that he was a celebrity he thought he'd show them what he _really_ could
do, and came up with _The Double_ , which is genius. But it bombed, and
Dostoevsky became a has-been in his mid-twenties. It's still one of the best
things he ever wrote, equal parts comic, tragic, and weird. It's also short,
so one of the best first things to read by him.

All that happened before he went to Siberia, which of course was
transformative. His memoir of the prison camp, _Notes From the House of the
Dead_ , is another masterpiece and a sort of decryption key for all his later
work. It was Tolstoy's favorite.

------
jveld
Dostoevsky (The Brothers Karamazov, Crime And Punishment) was sentenced to be
executed by the Tsarist government in 1849. He was actually _in front of the
firing squad_ , waiting for his turn to die, when he learned that his sentence
had been commuted to a measly 10 years hard labor in Siberia.

One could argue that this was the defining moment of his life, and most of his
greatest works were motivated in some way by the intensity of that experience.
So yeah, for _lots_ more on this, read Dostoevsky.

~~~
svdr
One of the main characters in Tolstoy's War and Peace (Pierre) was also almost
executed. You can read the scene here:

[https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2600/2600-h/2600-h.htm#link2...](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2600/2600-h/2600-h.htm#link2HCH0274)

~~~
jveld
Fascinating! I wonder if Tolstoy was depecting Dostoevsky. I guess I'll have
to read War and Peace as my enormous literary undertaking of the summer.

~~~
svdr
Highly recommended!

------
trothamel
[http://murderpedia.org/male.C/c/cooper-
kevin.htm](http://murderpedia.org/male.C/c/cooper-kevin.htm)

Has the first hand account of Joshua Ryen, who also experienced what it was
like to almost get executed.

I'm personally not a fan of the death penalty - I generally don't think it's
worth the risk in effort, except perhaps in the case for people (eg. terrorist
leaders) such that keeping them alive could result in a hostage situation.

But I do think it's a little unfair to have a case like this presented in a
completely one-sided way.

~~~
emgoldstein
The Ryen account is a little far down that page. Since we heard one story in
anatomical detail, how about another?

"The first time I met Kevin Cooper I was 8 years old and he slit my throat. He
hit me with a hatchet and put a hole in my skull. He stabbed me twice, which
broke my ribs and collapsed one lung. I lived only because I stuck four
fingers in my neck to slow the bleeding, but I was too weak to move. I laid
there 11 hours looking at my mother who was right beside me.

I know now he came through the sliding glass door and attacked my dad first.
He was lying on the bed and was struck in the dark without warning with the
hatchet and knife. He was hit many times because there is a lot of blood on
the wall on his side of the bed.

My mother screamed and Cooper came around the bed and started hitting her.
Somehow my dad was able to struggle between the bed and the closet but Cooper
bludgeoned my father to death with the knife and hatchet, stabbing him 26
times and axing him 11. One of the blows severed his finger and it landed in
the closet. My mother tried to get away but he caught her at the bottom of the
bed and he stabbed her 25 times and axed her 7.

All of us kids were drawn to the room by mom's screams. Jessica was killed in
the doorway with 5 ax blows and 46 stabs. I won't say how many times my best
friend Chris was stabbed and axed, not because it isn't important, but because
I don't want to hurt his family in any way, and they are here.

After Cooper killed everyone, and thought he had killed me, he went over to my
sister and lifted her shirt and drew things on her stomach with the knife.
Then he walked down the hallway, opened the refrigerator, and had a beer. I
guess killing so many people can make a man thirsty."

[EDIT: this is from Ryen's testimony in 2005.]

~~~
xenadu02
You forgot some key info:

The sole survivor, Josh Ryen, had told a social worker in the emergency room
that the murders were committed by 3 or 4 white men. Josh spelled his message
by pointing at letters on a clipboard as he was unable to speak, but the
social worker and medical staff observed that he was lucid and could spell his
name and address correctly. Judge Fletcher wrote, "Deputies misrepresented his
recollections and gradually shaped his testimony so that it was consistent
with the prosecution's theory that there was only one killer." Jurors,
however, said they disregarded Ryen's testimony because they believed he was
confused and traumatized.

On June 9, a woman named Diana Roper called the Sheriff’s Department to tell
them that her boyfriend, Lee Furrow, had come home in the early hours on the
night of June 4. He arrived in an unfamiliar station wagon with some people
who stayed in the car. He changed out of his overalls, which he left on the
floor of a closet. He was not wearing a t-shirt that he had been wearing
earlier in the day. He left the house after about five minutes and did not
return. [Roper and her father] both concluded that the overalls were spattered
with blood. Roper turned the overalls over to the Sheriff’s Department and
told the deputy that she thought Furrow was involved in the murders. Roper
later provided an affidavit stating that a bloody t-shirt found beside the
road leading from the murder house had been Furrow’s. It was a Fruit-of-the-
Loom t-shirt with a breast pocket. Roper stated that she recognized it because
she had bought it for him. She also stated that a bloody hatchet found beside
the road matched a hatchet that was now missing from her garage. [...] The
Sheriff’s Department never tested the overalls for blood, never turned them
over to Cooper or his lawyers, and threw them away in a dumpster on the day of
Cooper’s arraignment."

Furrow had been released from state prison a year earlier. He had been part of
a murderous gang, but had been given a short sentence in return for turning
state’s evidence against the leader of the gang. The leader was sentenced to
death. Furrow told friends that while he was part of the gang he killed a
girl, cut up her body, and thrown her body parts into the Kern River."

We know you can implant false memories, especially in kids. If the cops
decided Cooper was guilty it would have been easy to coach him into giving the
testimony above.

I'm not saying he is innocent or guilty, just that there appears to be some
doubt, much of it due to police sloppiness and misconduct.

~~~
emgoldstein
This is why it's a great idea to try these cases on Hacker News. (I'm only
half kidding.) Always and everywhere, if you sit on a jury and listen only to
the prosecutor or defense attorney, you will come to the conclusion they want.
This is for the same reason you can't tell what a magician is doing with his
hands: he's an pro, you're an amateur.

From:

[http://www.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/CooperReview.htm](http://www.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/CooperReview.htm)

 _3\. Josh Ryen told the police he thought three men committed the attack. He
later changed his story._

"When Josh was rescued the day after the murders, he could not talk because
his throat had been slashed. He could only squeeze the police officer's hand
in response to questions. The story that Josh was finally able to tell police
was that he was awakened in the middle of the night by his mother's screams.
When he and his friend Chris went to investigate, he saw the bodies of his
parents and Jessica and the backside of one unfamiliar person, so he ran and
hid. Then he heard Chris screaming, so Josh ran back towards his friend. At
that point, something struck him in the head, knocking him unconscious. He
awoke later in a pool of blood.

When later queried by investigators, Josh spoke of three Mexicans who had come
to the house earlier and thought they could have done it because they had been
there once before. However, Josh never said he saw three people commit the
murders. He consistently told different investigators that he saw only one
attacker. The triple murderer theory is merely speculation based on the visit
of the three Mexicans and twisting of a little boy's words.

Additionally, Josh was an eight-year-old boy who was startled awake by a
horrific murder and was brutally attacked. It is unsurprising that probing
questions by adults and the power of suggestion later tried to confuse his
story. Most important however, Cooper was not convicted on the limited
testimony of an eight-year-old. He was convicted by the mountain of other
evidence incriminating him."

 _1\. The girlfriend of a former inmate friend of Cooper 's, thought her
boyfriend might have been involved in the murder. She turned his bloody
coveralls over to the local Yucaipa sheriff's substation, but they threw out
the coveralls without testing them._

"This girlfriend, Diane Roper, was dismissed by law enforcement as completely
lacking credibility. She was a professed witch who claimed she had a vision
during a trance that the murder had been committed after she heard about the
Ryen case. However, she had no substantive reason to believe her boyfriend was
involved with Cooper the night of the murder. In fact, she told sheriff's
investigators that she did not even know to whom the coveralls belonged. She
said she "just knew" from the vision that the coveralls were connected to the
case. By the time the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department heard about
her fantastic story, they had Cooper in custody with mountains of evidence
(see above) against him. Based on their limited resources and already having
the likely killer in custody, the San Bernardino County police chose not to
expend precious time and money chasing Roper's crazy story."

As for the other evidence:

"The victims died from numerous chopping wounds later determined to have been
inflicted by a hatchet or axe and stabbing wounds inflicted by both a knife
and an ice pick. Later that day, bloodstained items were found in the vacant
house where Cooper had stayed, including a button from a prison jacket
identical to the one he was wearing when he escaped. A police criminologist
also found evidence of blood on the carpet, in the bathroom sink and in the
shower along with Cooper's footprint. Hairs from the shower drain and the
bathroom sink were consistent with those from two of the victims.

A bloodstained hatchet from the vacant house was later found near the Ryen
home. The sheath from the hatchet was found on the floor of the bedroom where
Cooper had slept. Some hunting knives and at least one ice pick were also
missing from the vacant house. A strap fitting one of the missing knives was
found in the same bedroom. Shoe prints were found in the Ryen home and the
vacant house next door matching the unique pattern of shoes issued exclusively
to prison inmates. The prints indicated shoes of Cooper's size and brand that
he had recently received in prison.

While most of the blood samples taken at the murder scene were determined to
have come from the victims, one sample was conclusively determined to have
come from a black person with the same blood group as Cooper. The sample was
too small to determine if it was Cooper's rare blood type.

The Ryen station wagon was found several days after the killings in a church
parking lot in Long Beach. Hairs found in the car matched those of Cooper.
Tobacco issued exclusively to prison inmates, which Cooper smoked, was found
in the vacant house and in the Ryen's station wagon.

Two days after the murders, Cooper befriended a couple in Mexico and joined
them on a boat trip up the California Coast. Weeks later, Cooper was arrested
on a boat off of Santa Barbara after the woman reported that he had raped her
at knife point, threatening to kill her if she woke her husband. Following his
arrest, several items taken from the vacant house in Chino were discovered on
the boat.

At his trial, Cooper admitted staying in the Chino house but denied any
involvement in the Ryen murders. Josh Ryen, who miraculously survived his
injuries, testified that he awoke on the night of the murders after hearing
his mother's screams. He remembered being hit from behind when trying to
investigate but was unable to identify his attacker.

For the 19 years following his 1985 conviction, Cooper's claims of trial and
sentencing errors have been reviewed by California and federal courts. In 2000
he won a delay of his execution so that new DNA testing could be performed on
various blood and saliva samples found at the murder scene, in the stolen
station wagon, and on a bloody t-shirt found near the Ryen home. The DNA from
all of these samples was found to have come from the same person. This DNA was
then compared to DNA from Cooper's blood. It matched. The odds of the match
being by chance were 1 in 310 billion."

When you hear one side of the story, always look for the other -- whether or
not it's a criminal trial. Adversarial justice works.

EDIT: show quotes clearly.

------
musha68k
Shame on anyone still for such an archaic form of "justice".

~~~
Houstonymous
Let's not make blanket statements or anything.

~~~
MajesticHobo
Why not? Some practices are totally abhorrent and have no place in any liberal
society.

~~~
wtbob
Some might say that the practice of allowing brutal murderers and rapists to
live out their lives and die in peace is totally abhorrent and has no place in
any liberal society.

It's almost as though different rational people of good will disagree about
moral matters.

~~~
MajesticHobo
A couple points:

> the practice of allowing brutal murderers and rapists to live out their
> lives and die in peace

Unless I'm misreading you, that's a huge misrepresentation of what death
penalty abolitionists advocate. I don't want violent criminals to have zero
repercussions for their actions, and no present-day society I've ever heard of
allows them to.

But I agree with (what I perceive to be your greater) point about differences
in personal moral code. I was merely speaking contextually about the general
trend Western society has followed for the past few centuries -- like fewer,
more lenient punishments and more respect for civil rights, among others.

~~~
Houstonymous
Maybe I wasn't talking about Western / liberal society. Maybe most people
don't currently live in that.

------
telesilla
This kind of emotional experience is beyond understanding for most of us (and
hopefully remains so). The masterpiece of a film Army of Shadows by Jean-
Pierre Melville has a scene in it, of an execution that .. (I won't continue
with spoilers). It was one of the most powerful things I've ever watched that
made me feel maybe just a tiny bit, what that might be like.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_of_Shadows](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_of_Shadows)

~~~
ahelwer
There is also _The Wall_ by Jean-Paul Sartre (warning, PDF):

[http://faculty.risd.edu/dkeefer/pod/wall.pdf](http://faculty.risd.edu/dkeefer/pod/wall.pdf)

------
throwaway_exer
If the only reason for banning capital punishment in the USA was to prevent
DA's from personally benefiting from "being tough on crime" in the next
election for DA or governor, that would be enough.

The entire American criminal system is beyond corrupt at this point.

~~~
rdl
It seems crazy -- there are so many independently-sufficient reasons to
abolish the death penalty, argued from virtually any grounds, many of which
otherwise are completely opposed.

------
interfixus
I live in Denmark. As do around 5.7 million others, all told. We have no death
penalty.

In 2015 we had 41 cases of homicide.

It can be done.

~~~
1stop
Denmark doesn't exactly have the cultural baggage the US has.

There isn't a gun culture* (just picking one aspect) at all in Denmark, there
is a rich culture in the US to the point that people think you are changing
the identity of the country if you reform gun law. Stating that a progressive
state that never had such problems can solve them has no meaning.

* guns would be the leading cause of homicide in the US.

~~~
sokoloff
Leading mechanism, not cause, IMO.

~~~
1stop
Is there any real difference?

Like a trigger is a leading mechanism, but it's the combustion that fires the
bullet?

~~~
sokoloff
The cause (IMO) is a human who lacks self-control, anger-management, moral
compass, or is otherwise broken in a way that causes/allows them to
intentionally take the life of a fellow human.

The gun/trigger/bullet/gunpowder/whatever is a mechanism of the murder, not
the cause. (I'm not a rabid "gun nut" [nor even a gun owner], but blaming guns
as the cause is just as fundamentally misplaced as blaming a baseball bat,
knife, or rope, IMO.)

~~~
1stop
But the facts don't reflect what you are saying.

Removal of guns from a society lowers total murders, it doesn't just move
those murders to some other weapon/cause.

Look at Australia's crime statistics, or Canada, or Britain before and after
serious gun control. They all show this to be true.

------
remarkEon
I simply don't think it wise to entrust the State, with a completely fallible
justice system, with the power to end a citizen's life. Haven't quite worked
out the philosophical grounding of that argument, but I think that's where
I'll start.

------
SeanDav
This would have been a far more interesting article if he had spoken more
about his thoughts and feelings, rather than the mechanical processes.

~~~
rdl
I find the factual, mechanical description more emotionally moving, because I
can more easily put myself in the position of the writer. My emotions matter a
lot more to me than what a (convicted) murderer says he's feeling -- I'm
against the death penalty even in cases where the person is clearly guilty and
a horrible person.

------
hackuser
Why are stays left to the last minute? Death pealty cases and their appeals
last many years.

~~~
erikpukinskis
The closer you get to the actual death, the sadder the story gets and the more
people come out of the woodwork to try and help.

------
ErikAugust
"I was supposed to be executed one minute after midnight on February 10, 2004.
...

The prison also started sending a psychiatrist — it was clear that they wanted
to make sure I was not going to commit suicide."

So absurd!

------
sevenless
The family of four he brutally murdered might have had an opinion on that,
too.

~~~
citricsquid
There are victims and families of victims who do not support the death
penalty. A documentary aired in the UK a few years ago that spoke with the
family of a prison officer (Daniel Nagle) who was murdered, the perpetrator
(Robert Pruett) had been sentenced to the death penalty and the Nagle family
were against the sentence -- even though they believe him to be guilty of the
murder.

If you're in the UK you can watch that here:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03zndw4/life-and-
death...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03zndw4/life-and-death-row-
series-1-3-crisis-stage)

I'm not quite sure if I'm interpreting your comment correctly, apologies if
I've misunderstood the point you're making.

~~~
1stop
But there are families who clearly want revenge as well.

Revenge or resiprocity seems a pretty core part of the human condition.

------
WalterBright
I oppose the death penalty. Not because I have sympathy for murderers, but
because it is uncivilized to ritualistically kill people.

------
bb101
I don't get it. Cooper's stay of execution was granted in 2004, most probably
due to facts that became known at the time. This article was published in
2016, and he is still in prison - for the same crime? Twelve years have passed
and no progress has been made in determining whether Cooper was responsible or
not?

------
known
Isn't community service better than capital punishment?

------
jeevand
I understand that US justice system is completely biased against minorities
(Mainly blacks) but i can't completely come to terms with total abolition of
death penalty as expressed by many here on HN. Here are few incidents where i
think death penalty can be justified (examples are from Norway which has
abolished death penalty & India where it is very rarely carried out - only 5
from 1995)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Delhi_gang_rape](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Delhi_gang_rape)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajmal_Kasab](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajmal_Kasab)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masood_Azhar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masood_Azhar)
(Got released after a hijacking and founded JeM)

~~~
yrro
A reformed Breivik, once released, would be able to do some good by working
against his former cause, speaking to prevent others from following down the
path that he took.

