Damn, I feel queasy about this one.
I’m from Virginia, and while I’m not from the far southwest part of the commonwealth where this happened I’ve been following this case for a long time.
At the time of Coleman’s death from what I read in the papers I was pretty sure he was guilty. Then a friend of mine recommended I read, “May God Have Mercy: A True Story of Crime and Punishment.” It was released about 10 years ago if memory serves.
For a long time I’d sort of tacitly supported the death penalty. Morally I didn’t feel it right that the government execute people. But I also didn’t lose any sleep as in general I felt these people were the absolute dregs of society, the worst society has ever produced.
But what that book does a good job of demonstrating (and this applies eventhough Coleman was guilty) is just how flawed the process was. Legally speaking I don’t see how a judge, a defense attorney, SOMEONE in that legal mess didn’t say/convince people that, “Hey, there just isn’t a solid case here.”
And there really wasn’t. The physical evidence against Coleman was shaky. There was a very plausible explanation that someone else committed the crime, someone who lived within sight of Wanda McCloy and who had a history of sexually abusing women and who was feared in the community for his violence and unpredictability (given all that I know about this person if there were two rapists I suspect he was the other one.)
The “no forced entry” thing is bullshit, there was a pry-mark on McCloy’s door. It has been suggested the prosecutor’s office may have hidden this fact from the defense (which is a big no-no.) There was also a very credible witness who put Coleman somewhere else very shortly before the crime was committed. The time frame, under this witness’s testimony made it all but impossible for Coleman to get from A to B and commit two rapes (McCloy was vaginally and anally raped) in the time period before McCloy’s husband returned home from work.
Anyways, I certainly still suggest the book. It shows a lot of problem’s with the prosecution’s case, the system in general, and Coleman’s very inexperienced defense attorney. He was so inept as a defense attorney that during the appeals process he actually made statements harmful to Coleman’s chances of getting a new trial.
The appeals process also shows how one Virginia judge had the ability to unduly influence the case and all-but ignore highly relevant evidence. The State appeals process was nightmarish, as Coleman was basically given no ability to meaningfully appeal his conviction in State court because his appeal came in late. Which may or may not be true because I believe it was actually filed three days earlier, but because of some weird Holiday that monday or something like that, it wasn’t processed until a day late; so he technically missed his window for appeal on the state level.
When the DNA evidence is analyzed in the book and shows Coleman was in a group constituting 2% of the population I got a little suspicious. However some of those small southwestern Virginia towns have a lot of “intermixed bloodlines” (i’m not saying “inbred” but the genetic diversity isn’t high) meaning it wasn’t unlikely in my mind that more people in the town were within that 2%. In fact I think Wanda McCloy’s husband was also in the 2%.
Ultimately though this leaves me pissed off at Coleman. It’s one thing to vigorously try to defend yourself. But he took up the resources of a group that was trying to get innocent men off death row by lying. And he also had a young lawyer working hours and hours of her life emotionally distraught over the matter, because in her mind she was unable to get an innocent man off of death row. Coleman also married while in prison to a young woman who basically was lied to constantly by Coleman in that he always maintained with her that he was innocent.
