Conviction When Real Guilt is Irrelevant
by Ms. Boomer-ang
Sarah Terzo, in her October 2024 blog post about the September 2024 execution of a man, despite the fact that the one who testified against him had later retracted his statement and declared he did not want someone to die for something he did not do, observed, “It often seems that our justice system doesn’t actually care whether the person executed is guilty, only that the killing takes place.”
An episode with a similar motivation occurs in Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451, which John Whitehead wrote about in October 2023 for other purposes. In that episode, law enforcers are chasing dissident protagonist Guy Montag. Montag evades his pursuers and finds shelter with a group of men who live outside society. Together they watch the chase on a portable TV. Though the pursuers have lost Montag’s trace, the broadcaster announces that they are converging on their target. Montag’s new friend Granger observes, “they can hold their audience only so long. The show’s got to have a snap ending, quick!” Soon enough the persuers find a man walking alone outside, kill him on live camera, and proclaim, “The search is over, Montag is dead; a crime against society has been avenged,” now on to the next fun program!
Meanwhile, Granger surmises that the real victim was conveniently someone “the police have charted for months, years,” for non-conformity, like walking outside in the early morning.1
History is full of examples where the actual guilt of a punished person is less important than carrying out the punishment. Reasons include leaving no crime unavenged, closing the case within a certain time frame, and taking advantage of an opportunity to hurt or eliminate a member of a disfavored minority. When the punishment is death, additional reasons include emphasizing the triumph of the death penalty, taking advantage of an opportunity to apply it, and dispiriting opponents of the death penalty.
These attitudes sometimes lead to miscarriages of justice and sometimes acts of war. Below are examples of possible miscarriages of justice. In these cases, both domestic and international, more important than guilt or innocence was the person’s ethnicity, birthplace, religion, and/or political beliefs.
Leo Frank / Bartolomeo Vanzetti / Nicola Sacco
In 1913 in Atlanta, Leo Frank was sentenced to hang for the murder of Mary Phagan, a child-laborer in the pencil factory where he had been superintendent. Of the initial persons of interest, the only one charged was Frank, the Jew.
Two days after the indictment, a man reportedly told an Elks Club, “I’m glad they indicted a goddam Jew…. If I get on that jury, I’ll hang the Jew for sure.” 2 He got on the jury.
After conviction, all Frank’s appeals failed, but the testimony led the governor of Georgia to commute the sentence to life imprisonment in 1915. A few months later, a mob kidnapped Frank from jail and hung him, in front of a mass of joyful spectators. Postcards and songs celebrated the lynching, and antisemitic pogroms broke out. Half of Georgia’s Jews moved out of state.
In April 1921, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were sentenced to death for murdering two people in Braintree, Massachusetts, a year earlier, during an armed robbery of a shoe factory. Their execution took place in August 1927.
Prior to the 1920 murder indictment, Vanzetti had been tried for a holdup. Thirteen witnesses swore he was nowhere near the scene. But since Vanzetti was an Italian and an admitted radical, the truth was too radical for Judge Webster Thayer. He told the jury: “This man, although he may not have actually committed the crime attributed to him, is nonetheless morally culpable, because he is the enemy of our . . . institutions.” Vanzetti was convicted of that holdup in addition to the murder he and Sacco were later famously convicted for.3 The same Judge Thayer presided over the murder trial.
Reichstag Fire 1933 / World Trade Center Explosion 1993
In 1933, shortly after Hitler became chancellor, Germany’s Reichstag (Parliament) building burned down. Upon hearing the building was on fire, Goering declared: “Without a doubt, this is the work of Communists . . . This is a Communist crime.” And Hitler exclaimed: “God grant that this is the work of Communists . . . This is a God-given signal . . . If this fire, as I believe, is the work of Communists, then we must crush out this murderous pest with an iron fist.”4
Sure enough, in the building, they found a Communist, Marinus van der Lubbe. By September, five Communists were on trial for the fire: one German, three Bulgarians, and van der Lubbe, who was Dutch and visually impaired. The other four were acquitted, but van der Lubbe was convicted and executed. Meanwhile, Hitler used this as an excuse to speed up establishing an “iron-fist” dictatorship.
Whether van der Lubbe acted alone, as part of a conspiracy, or as a Nazi dupe has been debated. Some theories even suggest that by the time he came to the Reichstag, the fire had already been kindled, without his knowledge, by storm troopers. (Wikipedia, April 7, 2025)
Sixty years later, in the USA, an explosion ripped through New York’s World Trade Center, killing six. One of the cars parked in the basement had been rented to a foreign-born Muslim. Case closed. The literal truth did not matter. He was quickly found guilty.
I witnessed a fellow member of a frequently-persecuted group cheering at the verdict. When reminded that five years earlier, the convict would have been a Columbian drug dealer, ten years earlier he would have been a “Russian agent,” and 70 years earlier he would have been one of us, she said, “Yes, but,” and smiled smugly. When reminded of Leo Frank and Sacco and Vanzetti, her eyes lit up, as if saying, “We enjoy the fun we missed out then!”
In Russia, would the convicted have been a Chechen? In Spain, would the convicted have been a Basque?
Iin 1995, a car bomb wrecked the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 167. At first certain that a foreign-born Muslim did it, people tormented local Muslims, resulting in a Muslim woman giving birth so prematurely the baby died. But then the culprit was identified as an American-born Christian, Timothy McVeigh. Then, even though McVeigh’s opinions on such issues were unknown, New York Times columnist Frank Rich jumped to blame Right to Life movements for the bombing. Can guilt by stretched association get any non-conforming movement in danger of being labeled terrorist?5
Many more examples from around the world of people convicted without solid evidence abound. Several aspects require whole essays of their own. One is plea bargaining, which proceeds as if the defendant is guilty, despite no trial. Another is interrogations that seek to elicit confessions and convictions rather than find the truth. Another is the effect of wrongful convictions on the real culprit.
Wrongful convictions do not make the world safer. The idea of the death penalty or any punishment as a deterrence goes out the window with the disregard of actual innocence or guilt. Accusing and unjustly convicting members of a disfavored minority can unjustly intimidate some members of that group into leaving the area or changing or concealing their identity. Others may become more prone to crime, because they figure they’ll be punished anyway. And it can lead members of favored groups to feel they can get away with any crime if there’s likely to be a member of a disfavored group near the scene.
FOOTNOTES
1(Copyright 1951. This edition, Simon and Schuster, May 2018, pp. 141-44)
2Douglas O. Linder, “Leo Frank Trial,” UMKC Law School, www.famous-trials.com, copyright 1995-2005
3 John Frango, “Today’s Immigrant-Bashers Should Recall Treatment Their Ancestors Faced,” Journal News, March 11, 2000.
4 Philip Metcalf, 1933, New York: Harper & Row, The Permanent Press, 1988, pp. 83-84
5Frank Rich, “Connect the Dots,” New York Times, April 30, 1995
Picture of Mr. Frank found in Mr. Linder’s post
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For our posts on similar topics, see:
Not Caring about Guilt or Innocence: An Execution Case that Illustrates a Pattern
Why Conservatives Should Oppose the Death Penalty
Is the Death Penalty Unethical?
The Death Penalty and Abortion: The Conservative/Liberal Straitjacket
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