So much for getting off Death Row

Cecil has a a good post here, showing a letter to the Asheville Citizen-Times written by Frank Goldsmith, one of the attorneys responsible for getting an inmate off Death Row. It was an amazing story, but the Citizen-Times hardly felt it worth covering. I searched the newspaper’s electronic archive and found only one mention of the story. Even WLOS did an interview with Goldsmith.

It’s also worth mentioning that the newspaper decided to blow off The newspaper also didn’t cover the talk of Sister Helen Prejean, probably the nation’s foremost death penalty opponent. The paper printed a brief advance notice. When contacted by Mars Hill College, which coordinated and hosted Prejean’s visit, I jumped at the chance to speak to the author of Dead Man Walking. Go here to read my interview with Prejean.

Here’s part of the Goldsmith’s letter. Go to Bothwell’s Blog to see the full letter:

On Friday I was contacted by a nice young woman who is working as an intern for your newspaper, who asked if I would agree to be interviewed about the case of Glen Edward Chapman, the Catawba County man who was recently released from Death Row after being incarcerated for over 15 years for crimes he did not commit. I agreed because of the importance of the story, which exposes the substantial frailties of our system of justice. When I arrived for the interview, I was surprised to learn from the intern that her editor – I do not know which one – had decided that the story was not sufficiently newsworthy to merit inclusion in the weekend edition. The young lady did not tell me that in order to criticize the editor or the paper, but simply to let me know why I would not be reading the story in the Citizen-Times over the weekend.

I find this baffling – all the more so after weighing the significance of the stories that turned up in the weekend edition. This case is about a man who was very nearly sent to his death because police detectives lied at trial, covered up the existence of a confession by the real killer, ditched the results of a photo lineup in which someone else was positively identified, hid witness statements that pointed to innocence, and altered other witness statements to make them better fit the officers’ theory of guilt (it was those fabricated statements that were disclosed to the defense lawyers, to throw them off the track). It is a case of official corruption so striking that I cannot see how any responsible journalist could decide that it is not “newsworthy.” The deceit was compounded by the complete ineptness of the lawyers assigned to defend Chapman at his trial, as well as by other flaws, including forensic medical evidence that questions whether one of the victims’ deaths was actually a homicide at all.

I realize the Asheville Citizen-Times is a small regional paper that gives prominence to items of local interest. But even if locality is the criterion for coverage, this case has connections to Western North Carolina, if only any of the paper’s editors had bothered to inquire. Most people in the state consider Hickory, where the alleged crimes occurred, to be part of Western North Carolina. Every member of Chapman’s post-conviction defense team is from Asheville or Marion. Our mitigation specialist and investigator, Dr. Pamela Laughon, is a well-respected professor of psychology (and chair of that department) at UNCA. Several of her UNCA psychology students worked on the case under her supervision. Our other investigator, Lenora Topp, lives and works in Asheville. Jessica Leaven, my co-counsel, formerly practiced in Asheville and has family here, although she recently took a job in Chapel Hill. I practice in Marion and live in Buncombe County. Of course, I would hope the paper would not exclude any story that has significance for our system of capital punishment merely because the news is not sufficiently provincial.