It finally happened. Anti-capital punishment activists started to get on the bandwagon of Ricky McGinn, who is scheduled to be executed in Texas. In 1995, McGinn was convicted of raping and murdering his 12-year-old stepdaughter, Stephanie Flanary.
DNA testing had been done previously on pubic hairs and semen found on the body of the victim, but the tests at that time were inconclusive. McGinn, who maintains he’s innocent, wanted to have the material re-tested using more accurate tests that are now available. The state of Texas denied such an avenue, but Gov. George W. Bush gave McGinn a 30 day reprieve to conduct the testing.
And the results apparently show what prosecutors maintained all along — the pubic hair belongs to either McGinn or a very close maternal relative of his. This pretty much puts the nail in the coffin for McGinn, and in the long term for the anti-capital punishment movement.
Capital punishment foes like to tout new polls showing that support for the death penalty has declined in recent years — today only two-thirds of Americans support capital punishment despite the well-publicized incidents of innocent people ending up on death row. That’s down from a high of 80 percent a few years ago. Most of that drop can probably be ascribed to the question over guilt and innocence, but DNA testing is going to take care of all their fears.
Already smart death penalty supporters are taking the obvious step to secure the future of capital punishment — they are pushing for laws to grant those convicted of capital crimes additional appeals to resolve DNA-related evidence issues. Once that is in place and Americans are assure that, wherever possible, DNA testing is done to make sure that the odds of an innocent person are astronomically low, support for capital punishment will again reach into the 80 percent range. In fact, with the advent of widespread DNA testing I wouldn’t be surprised to see capital punishment instituted in many states that currently don’t execute criminals. (such as Michigan, where I live).
Although the anti-capital punishment forces have done an excellent job of winning individual battles and freeing innocent people from death row, but they’ve lost the war for the hearts and minds of the American people on the morality of the issue. The coming use of DNA to reduce the risk of executing innocent people will only further cement the pro-execution stance of most Americans and put the anti-capital punishment movement back at square one.