It only stands to reason that before wide spread DNA testing that innocent people were executed. That's the point, as you said the system isn't perfect. And these examples are ones the4y did find.
try this:
http://www.truthinjustice.org/irreversible.htm
Aside from that BB, very few people are actively investigating a person's innocent after thier execution.
What's the point you know? So you are probably not going to find out about it. But hte Graham case shows there isn't a standard for capital punishments convictions as you eluded to.
So you are indeed making an assumption. I concede that with the number of people who have been taken off death row, that it's possible an innocent has been executed. But all we have is speculation.
And I don't think Graham is a good case for anti-death penalty proponents to hang their hat on. The guy was a scourge on society: "he pleaded guilty to a week-long rampage of 10 robberies around the same time but said he was innocent of the murder."
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_5_98/ai_63537150 It's possible Graham was innocent. I doubt it. Check out this discussion by one of his crime victims:
KING: All right, Charles, you stay with us, because we'll be going back to you.
Let's go to Houston now and talk with David Spiers, who was robbed and shot by Graham in May of 1981. Mr. Spiers is a supporter of the death penalty and a supporter of the death penalty for Gary Graham.
Was this -- was your occurrence with him after or before the alleged murder?
DAVID SPIERS, VICTIM: Hello?
KING: Yes, David.
SPIERS: Yes. Mine was on May 16, it was a Saturday, And I was...
KING: And the murder occurred when?
SPIERS: I don't know the exact date right now.
KING: Was it after your occurrence?
SPIERS: I think it was after.
KING: All right. And what happened to you?
SPIERS: When I was on the freeway, he pulled out a sawed-off -- my car broke down on Interstate 10, and Gary Graham came over to help me, he pulled over, and said he was going take me to service station to get some help. I jumped in the back seat of his car. As we were driving down the freeway, I noticed we had passed my exit sign, and all of a sudden he pulled out a 12-gauge shotgun and put it to my chest.
At that time, he said he was going go ahead and kill me, because he had already killed three or four other people, and he also told me that he was going to go back and kill my fiancee and her parents afterwards. At that time, he pulled the hammer back of the shotgun and blew my leg in half. I grabbed shotgun away. I fired at him, I fired at him. The windshield went out. The car started spinning. We were fighting. I had the butt of the shotgun. I was hitting him back and forth.
Larry, it was probably one of the most violent things a human being can go through. Cars were hitting us. It was raining very, very hard. It was 10:00 on Saturday night. All of a sudden, another car hit us. My leg was severed. I grabbed my ankle, threw myself out of the car. It broke my leg, my other leg. I pulled myself to the side of the road. I was lifelined to one of the local hospitals here, and I spent three months in the hospital. And I went in a weighing about 205 pounds, Larry, and when I came out, I was weighing about 135.
KING: Did he rob you, David?
SPIERS: Yes. He did rob me, and he -- you know, the funny thing about this was I was an eyewitness to my own murder. But I fought back, and I fought for my life, and the thing about this is that when I spent three months in the hospital, I almost died. I got my last rites. After that, I didn't walk for two years. I still don't walk properly today. I've lost a lot of movement, a lot of function in my leg.
But the scary thing was one reason I did fight for my life is because he did tell me that he murdered two or three people, and I was just going to be another one. But what really scared me was that he told me he is going to go back and murder my fiancee and her parents so they could go with me.
KING: Sure. Did you -- you of course did not testify in his murder trial, as one had nothing to do with the other, correct?
SPIERS: Unfortunately, Larry, I did not, because I was in critical shape. But my violent crime was part of the punishment phase.
KING: It was part of the -- in other words, you were able to testify when they were deciding on life or death.
SPIERS: No. I was not in there, but they took all the 22 crimes that he did, or the 21 plus the murder of Bobby Lambert, and they put it all in one, and that was in the punishment phase. You know, when I was in the hospital, the police brought in stack of photographs, and I picked out three separate photographs of him. I had a visual eye-to- eye contact with him. And when I see him on TV today, 19 years later, and I look at his eyes, I see violence, and I know that he tried to murder me.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0006/22/lkl.00.html