Apr 03 2008
Innocent Man Leaves Death Row
Chapman is the seventh innocent death row prisoner in North Carolina to be released, according to the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington.
He was sentenced to death in 1994 in the slayings of Betty Jean Ramseur and Tenene Yvette Conley in Hickory. Their bodies were found in abandoned houses in August 1992. Chapman has always denied killing them.
Ervin’s 186-page order said a lead investigator, Dennis Rhoney, withheld information that a key witness in the Ramseur case identified someone other than Chapman in a photo lineup. Rhoney, who worked for the Hickory Police Department, also lied during his trial testimony against Chapman, Ervin wrote.
The officer who perjured himself has been suspended, but it needs to go further than that. In my opinion, the appropriate punishment for Officer Rhoney is a 14 year sentence in jail, the same amount of time Chapman spent based on Rhoney’s lies.
Bear in mind that what this officer did may also ricochet throughout the court system. Any other cases he has testified in may now be called into question. What if a truly guilty criminal walks free and victimizes someone else down the road because of Rhoney’s actions?
Make that 14 years of hard labor for Rhoney. Along with forking over most of his assets to Mr. Chapman in return for stealing 14 years of Mr. Chapman’s life.
Cases like these are why, as much as I favor harsh sentences, I can’t support the death penalty. Not only do I have a moral and philosophical problem with the state having the power to take someone’s life, but even today, with DNA and blood analysis and more, we can STILL get it wrong. I don’t know if Chapman truly is innocent, but if he is, then thank God we found out BEFORE the sentence was carried out. But it makes me wonder how many times we discovered the truth either too late or not at all.