Lethal Conjecture (Page 2 of 5)
May 3, 2007By:
“In Florida, they have 14 pages of questions that need answers and need fixing,” Henry says. “Missouri’s been trying for over a year to fix [their] protocol, and California’s [also] not fixed yet — the judge keeps saying ‘this isn’t fixed’ and that’s been over a year.”
KV went to press on the eve of the deadline, and no information about the revision process and changes in the manual were released beforehand — an issue that has led to litigation regarding the state’s Open Records Act.
Nashville Scene, an alternative weekly newspaper, brought a lawsuit against the Bredesen administration after filing several public document requests seeking information about the manual’s revision that were ignored with the claims that the information and documents were privileged. “I’m disturbed by the lack of transparency in this process,” says Henry. “It’s all the things going on in secret that’s so disturbing.” KV’s requests to the state for the same information were not granted.
On April 25, the court ruled in favor of Nashville Scene, finding that the public interest in the process outweighed the interest of the government in seeking privacy. The state opted not to appeal the decision and the documents were released May 1 as KV went to press.
Meanwhile, Workman is scheduled to be executed one week from Bredesen’s May 2 deadline for the execution manual revision. The state sentenced Workman to death row in 1982 after convicting him of fatally shooting a Memphis police officer in a 1981 fast-food restaurant robbery. Lieutenant Ronald Oliver and two other officers arrived at the scene of the robbery, and as Workman fled, several shots were fired, one of which killed Oliver. The other two officers testified in court that they did not fire their weapons but also admitted they hadn’t seen Workman fire either. The only eyewitness, Harold Davis, testified he had seen Workman shoot Oliver, but he later admitted he had lied in court and retracted his testimony. Another witness came forward later with information that the two officers had in fact fired their weapons, which was corroborated with initial police reports. The defense entered no ballistics or forensics evidence, but a medical expert said with a “degree of certainty” that the bullet that killed Oliver wasn’t Workman’s, opening the possibility that one of the other officers may have shot him in friendly fire.
In addition, both Workman’s and Oliver’s daughters came together at a 2000 press conference, asking the governor to grant clemency for Workman. After post-conviction evidence was found, the former District Attorney of Shelby County — the same office that prosecuted Workman— ironically became the lead counsel in the clemency bid opposing his execution.
With potentially exonerating evidence entered after Workman’s conviction, the death row inmate has been granted multiple last-minute delays to his death penalty — May 9 is his sixth re-scheduled execution date.
“One stay was 47 minutes before [execution], one was 36 hours before, and once they took him to death watch even though he had his stay [and] the state was trying to get it lifted,” says Henry, who has been part of Workman’s counsel since 2001. “We have a claim in one case in federal court that the trauma caused to him makes the death sentence at this point, if it were carried out, cruel and unusual punishment. The stays weren’t his fault, evidence was withheld by the state.” Henry says the upheaval of facing his death sentence multiple times has led to a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder in the inmate.
Workman has granted previous media interviews, but as his execution date approaches, he declined KV’s request for an interview. “He feels like he can’t put himself through that again,” Henry says.
The Tennessee Supreme Court denied Workman’s March 27 request to stay his lethal injection, although Henry says all options aren’t exhausted. “We have a motion for a stay pending at the U.S. District for West Tennessee in Memphis and have asked the court to stay while an appeal is pending in the Sixth District Court of Appeals.”
