Who needs David Gale when you've got Ruben Cantu?

Last week, I rented a very good movie some of you may have seen, The Life of David Gale. It tells the (fictional) story of a Harvard-educated philosophy professor in Austin who is a leading anti-death penalty activist; after a series of unusual and unfortunate events, Gale (played by Kevin Spacey) finds himself on death row in Texas for having allegedly killed a fellow activist.  Just prior to his scheduled execution, Gale explains his story for the first time to a magazine journalist (played by Kate Winslet).  The force of Gale's story draws from his innocence and his ability to realize that, at some point, there's a political need to have an innocent person executed in order to prove that the death penalty system is fundamentally flawed.  It's not enough, in other words, to prove to the Governor that the system has detected errors prior to the scheduled executions; rather, there must be an innocent stiff lumped over in the chair to prove that the system doesn't work.  Gale is prepared to be, in service to the cause, that innocent stiff. 

It bears mention, especially as a mostly anti-death penalty writer myself, that the screenplay of Gale has a historical basis.  While there have been many incidents of error in the modern "machinery of death" since Gregg v. Georgia reinstated the permissibility of the death penalty, it has been virtually impossible to point to an innocent person who actually has been executed in the "modern period."  (Bedau and Radelet argued that, prior to the modern period, there had been miscarriages of justice where the wrong person was executed but they and others have not been able to show a wrongly executed person in modern times.)  The Death Penalty Information Center website, however, keeps a running tally of those who have been freed from death row--and the number currently stands at 122.

Fast forward to Sunday's Houston Chronicle, which narrates the true-life story of Ruben Cantu.  Cantu was executed a dozen years ago, at the age of 26, though he was only 17 at the time of the crime for which he was convicted.  According to Lise Olsen, the piece's author, the prosecutor, the defense attorney, the sole eyewitness, and the head juror now think Cantu was wrongly executed, the result of undue police pressure exerted on Moreno, the surviving witness of the violence of which Cantu was accused. 

Cantu's long-silent co-defendant, David Garza, just 15 when the two boys allegedly committed a murder-robbery together, has signed a sworn affidavit saying he allowed his friend to be falsely accused, though Cantu wasn't with him the night of the killing.  And the lone eyewitness, the man who survived the shooting, has recanted. He told the Chronicle he's sure that the person who shot him was not Cantu, but he felt pressured by police to identify the boy as the killer. Juan Moreno, an illegal immigrant at the time of the shooting, said his damning in-court identification was based on his fear of authorities and police interest in Cantu.

"We did the best we could with the information we had, but with a little extra work, a little extra effort, maybe we'd have gotten the right information," said Miriam Ward, forewoman of the jury that convicted Cantu. "The bottom line is, an innocent person was put to death for it. We all have our finger in that."  Sam Millsap Jr., the former Bexar County district attorney who made the decision to charge Cantu with capital murder, says he never should have sought the death penalty in a case based on the testimony of an eyewitness who identified Cantu only after police officers showed him Cantu's photo three separate times.  "It's so questionable. There are so many places where it could break down," said Millsap, now in private practice. "We have a system that permits people to be convicted based on evidence that could be wrong because it's mistaken or because it's corrupt."

To be sure, Cantu was no boy scout.  He was involved with drugs and car thefts and even in shooting an off-duty police officer for which no crime was charged because of the murky circumstances.  Still, there was no physical evidence, no confession, and no alternative evidence -- aside from Moreno's now discredited testimony -- to link Cantu to the crime for which he was convicted.  All the evidence points away from him today. Thus, Ruben Cantu is dead.  And, in all likelihood, innocent.

Time to spread the word.  If the Chronicle is right, we have found our "David Gale." And this one was no willing martyr. 

(Hat tip: Talkleft, whose commentators clearly need to read this article.)

UPDATE: As always, Doug Berman's got valuable followup and buildup to the story over here.  Also, Lise Olsen has another article in today's Chronicle that describes Cantu's co-defendant's efforts to clear Cantu's name, and to implicate the real perpetrator.  Olsen's going to get short-listed for a Pulitzer I bet.  But the burden's on bloggers and MSM to help spread the news and continue thinking about its implications.