Chron pushes death penalty case hard in leadup to Thanksgiving
The anti-death-penalty Chronicle pushed one of its favorite topics hard as Thanksgiving approached.
In a high-profile story, Lise Olsen concluded that an innocent man had been put to death courtesy of the Texas death penalty:
Texas executed its fifth teenage offender at 22 minutes after midnight on Aug. 24, 1993, after his last request for bubble gum had been refused and his final claim of innocence had been forever silenced.
Ruben Cantu, 17 at the time of his crime, had no previous convictions, but a San Antonio prosecutor had branded him a violent thief, gang member and murderer who ruthlessly shot one victim nine times with a rifle before emptying at least nine more rounds into the only eyewitness — a man who barely survived to testify.
Four days after a Bexar County jury delivered its verdict, Cantu wrote this letter to the residents of San Antonio: "My name is Ruben M. Cantu and I am only 18 years old. I got to the 9th grade and I have been framed in a capital murder case."
A dozen years after his execution, a Houston Chronicle investigation suggests that Cantu, a former special-ed student who grew up in a tough neighborhood on the south side of San Antonio, was likely telling the truth.
As Sedosi Alhambra pointed out, the story was decidedly unbalanced:
The story ... is curiously short on the opinions of those with an opposing view. There is, of course, the silly symbolism that the Chron is rapidly becoming known for (Cantu was refused bubble gum, etc.) but very little examination of FACTS in this case.
Most of the reporting is based on opinion and conjecture. You will read a lot of "I think" and "I could see where" etc. It is, of course, inevitable that all of the thinking and seeing leads to opinions that support the notion that Cantu was innocent.
Given the Chronicle's anti-death-penalty perspective and regular instances of the newspaper melding news and opinion, it's difficult to regard such unbalanced, one-sided reporting as definitive. The reporting at best raises questions about the case that should be examined more closely.
Nevertheless, the Chronicle executive editorial leadership apparently does see it as definitive. Here's the conclusion from the anti-death-penalty editorial board several days later:
An investigation of Cantu's conviction by the Chronicle's Lise Olsen provides persuasive evidence that his execution by the state was a mistake.
The reporting doesn't seem that definitive. The Chronicle editorial leadership certainly wants it to be definitive, although the newspaper's perspective on this topic not to mention its melding of news and opinion suggests that study by more objective analysts is merited before final judgment is rendered.
Speaking of the melding of news and opinion, here's the opinion of Rick Casey, the editorialist/gossip columnist who appears on the news pages:
On the rare occasion, and this appears to be one, when very strong new evidence indicates an innocent person may have been executed, an independent court or some other body should determine the outcome.
We agree with Casey in a sense. We don't think of the Chronicle as an especially independent voice on the death penalty. Still, a broken clock is right twice a day. So we'll be awaiting independent confirmation of the perspective presented by Olsen, Casey, and the Chronicle editorial board, and will be happy to revisit the matter if there is such confirmation.
UPDATE: Olsen has some experience elsewhere in death-penalty journalism, and she has also helped out locally with the Chron Eye.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 11/27/05 11:57 PM | Print |
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