Denver Post – Death penalty must be repealed, says Tim Masters

By Tim Masters

Tim Masters, left, answers questions from an audience at the University of Colorado law school in October 2011. (Cliff Grassmick, Daily Camera)

When I was 15 years old, a woman named Peggy Hettrick was brutally murdered and mutilated. Years later, I was sentenced to life imprisonment for her murder. I served 10 years of my sentence before I was proven innocent by DNA, and fully exonerated three years later. I am living proof that our criminal justice system makes terrible mistakes. I add my voice to the chorus calling upon the Colorado General Assembly to pass legislation ending the death penalty. It’s the only way we can ensure no innocent man like me is ever executed in Colorado.

Read more: Death penalty must be repealed, says Tim Masters – The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_22575269/death-penalty-must-be-repealed-says-tim-masters#ixzz2KmqLiLce
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Times-Dispatch: Senate agrees to compensate wrongly convicted man who died

Posted: Monday, February 4, 2013 12:00 am | Updated: 10:33 pm, Sun Feb 3, 2013.

BY FRANK GREEN Richmond Times-Dispatch

The proof that Bennett Barbour was innocent of a 1978 rape was available in 2010, and he might have won wrongful imprisonment compensation from the state two years ago.

A bill that would award him $162,527 was filed Jan. 9 in time for this year’s General Assembly session and in the nick of time — he died the next day.

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NY Times – Editorial: A Death Penalty Case in Puerto Rico

Published: February 4, 2013

Puerto Rico abolished the death penalty in 1929 and, a generation later, made it unconstitutional. The island’s Bill of Rights expressly decrees that “the death penalty shall not exist” there. But as a commonwealth of the United States, the island is subject to federal law, including the death penalty for many federal crimes.

This week, in a federal court there, the Justice Department is seeking the death penalty in the trial of Lashaun Casey, who is charged with the 2005 murder of an undercover narcotics officer during a drug deal.