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| NEW EVIDENCE AND QUESTIONS |
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  NEW EVIDENCE: Harold Davis, the only State witness recently recanted. Philip Workman's lawyer, Jefferson Dorsey says: "Without Harold Davis' testimony, it was not a capital crime That is the only direct evidence that made Philip Worman eligible for death penalty". NEW EVIDENCE: A ballistic test showed Workman's gun couldn't have caused the fatal wound. But it was too late to introduce those tests as new evidence! NEW EVIDENCE: Steve Craig did put a firing shotgun at the crime scene. He even said that he saw Officer Parker firing a shotgun at Workman. But at the trial, police denied firing any shot at the crime scene. If Philip Workman didn't fired the fatal shoot, then who did it? Officer Parker never admitted to carrying a shotgun. But he has been seen with a shotgun, so says fellow Officer O.W Stewart. In a struggle, many things can happen. And if Officer Oliver had been shot by friendly fire? What if a terrible mistake is in the middle of the story? As Jefferson Dorsey says: "It's the middle of a crime scene. Weapons are being fired. I'm not sure the officers on the scene knew exactly what was going on -to be charitable to them. Maybe they believed they didn't fire." The fact is that the jurors who sentenced Workman to death never heard new evidence that someone else may have fired the fatal shot -and they certainly never knew that the only witness who testified that he saw Workman shoot the officer may have been coerced by police into giving false testimony. In October 1999, Lida Springfield, who has been a juror at the trial, sais "Now that there is doubt, there is no way that I could have voted for the death penalty." The 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati affirmed Julia Gibbons' decision not to order a full hearing (just remember she took that decision before Harold Davis' recantation) last fall, and took another look at Workman's case last winter, but ruled in May that if Workman has "claims of actual innocence, discovered too late in the day for a new trial motion", he should present them to Governor Sundquist in a request for executive clemency. In fact, the courts make it harder for a defendant to present new evidence the further he gets into the appeals process. But a perjured testimony in a death-penalty trial! Nashville lawyer and legal scholar David Raybin said "It's very difficult to get a judge to buy recanted testimony. The biggest obstacle would be to convince a judge why this person recanted." And he added: "One of the most important questions is whether or not the government was aware of or responsible for incorrect testimony." In October 1999, it became obvious that Philip Workman would soon receive a new execution date, as the US Supreme Court did refuse to hear appeals filed on his behalf and as State Attorney General Paul Summers always said that he would ask the Tennessee Supreme Court to set an "expeditious" execution date for Workman as soon as possible "This is a sobering and somber day for the attorney general's office and the State of Tennessee, Summers recently said. It's a serious matter when you are dealing with the taking of a life." JUST GREAT! Even if it is unusual for the head of the State Post-Conviction Defender's office to take over the legal lead in a death penalty case, it is what Donald Dawson decided to do in asking the Supreme Court to request clemency from the governor for Philip Workman, according to court documents. "You can close your eyes to the evidence that perjured testimony condemned Workman and order Tennessee 1st* execution since Dwight Eisenhower was president, he said. Or you can acknoledge that no man should be sent to his death based on false evidence." Donald Dawson said he took over the lead in the case because he was appalled at the speed that this case was moving toward execution. The case had previously been handled by his assistants in his office: "There is clear evidence that perjured testimony was used to secure a guilty verdict and death sentence, he added. I felt it was necessary to make a plea to the court." In this plea, Don Dawson asked the Supreme Court to recommend that Governor Don Sundquist commute Workman's death sentence to life imprisonnment: "You, in every literal sense, hold Workman's life in your hands", he said. Paul Summers immediately replied that Dawson "unfortunately (..) injected personal opinion, knowledge and belief" into his plea and "purported to lecture this court concerning its own sence of conscience, duty and obligation." "Somebody needs to remind the attorney general's office that they have a duty to do justice, not just to kill Philip Workman", Don Dawson replied in turn. Now Philip Workman has exhausted all his legal appeals and now he has a new date, though 2 of the court's 5 members expressed doubts about the fairness of his death sentence, he can only count on Governor Don Sundquist's clemency.   Governor Sundquist is a vocal supporter of the death penalty, even if he is at the head of a State that didn't execute anybody since 1960. But those New Millennium days are election campaigns days... Regarding Workman's case, he said he would consider clemency requests once a condemned prisoner "has exhausted all possible judicial remedies." The Governor will ask the State Board of Probation and Parole to review any clemency recommandation, spekeswoman Beth Fortune said. And he will act as quickly as possible upon receiving the board's recommandation." She added: "The Governor will review each case on its own merit." Justice Adopho A. Birch recommended, under the terms of an old state law, that the Governor commute Workman's deat sentence to life imprisonment because of "extenuating circumstances attending this case." And there are some reasons for the Board and the Governor to "act quickly". With Tennessee firsts executions in 40 years looming, a new survey shows that more than 7 of 10 Middle Tennesseans favor the death penalty in the case of murder. Tennessee has a new population, despite Reverend Jodi McCullah, pastor of Wartrace Methodist Church in Greenbrier's own plea during a death-penalty protest: "I don't believe that vengeance is ours to take. I don't believe that taking a life will in any way somehow fix what has been done before. It won't heal the pain that people have", she said. And she is not the only one... As the head of the Centor for Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University, Larry Marshall did, in fact, take 12 people off death row. He has found exonerating evidence overlooked at trial, not presented to juries or denied by prosecutors intent on convictions. "Marshall says that Workman's execution would be a miscarriage of justice", said the Reverend Joe Ingle, who ministers to inmates on death row. "That's because we want to believe our criminal justice system doesn't make mistakes that imprison innocent people, said Larry Marshall. Recently, Marshall visited Tennesse saying Workman's case stood among those he has seen on wrongful convictions. Marshall's work led to an investigation of 285 death penalty cases in Illinois by the Chicago Tribune. It found "a system so plagued by unprofessionalism, imprecision and bias that they have rendered the state's ultimate punishment its least credible."(Source: Commentary, The Tennessean) As the electric chair is no more that much popular, State Tennessee decided to open the doors to the lethal injection and let the condemned chhose between the two methods! "Each walk had like thirteen cells.. My cell was twelve cells.. on three walks. And twelve cells on four walks was where the electric chair was. So like if I ever tried to escape and drilled through the wall, I'd just wind up in the electric chair room... I used to think about that sometimes. The firsts years I didn't even know it but where I laid my head every night over there..I slept for eight and a half years about four feet from the electric chair." Interview of Philip Workman provided by http://www.fotojones.com go to: the press conference and new evidence |
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