COLEMAN UPDATE
Since our last newsletter, the focus of pressure has shifted from the courts to Governor Warner to ensure finality regarding Roger Keith Coleman, who was executed in 1992 for the 1981 killing of his sister-in-law, Wanda McCoy. In November of last year, the Virginia Supreme Court refused to allow a group of newspapers, together with New Jersey charity Centurion Ministries, access to DNA for testing which would show categorically whether Coleman was guilty or innocent of that crime.
From the time of his arrest to his execution, Coleman maintained his innocence. The case against him was flimsy and based on circumstantial evidence, which included forensic testimony showing sperm cells recovered from the victim contained the same blood type as Coleman (2% of the population that could have donated it). However, since Coleman’s execution DNA testing has evolved to such a standard that the probability of two unrelated individuals matching is now between 1 in 740 billion, and 1 in 1 quadrillion. In short, it is now possible to prove beyond ANY reasonable doubt whether or not Coleman committed the crime; it is only a matter of conducting the new tests. Therein lies the rub. For whatever reason, Governor Warner has so far failed to order those tests.
The sample has lain preserved in a Californian laboratory for over a decade waiting for the conclusive tests to be carried out. The Court’s decision not to allow these tests was founded on the logic that to do so would go “…far beyond what is considered rightful access in criminal proceedings.” Virginia’s Freedom Of Information Act allows only for the inspection and copying of evidence, not testing. Governor Warner, however, can act upon the natural impulses of justice and order the sample be tested, proving once and for all that the state “got the right man,” or show honor in fallibility and admit that the state has executed an innocent man. Such a finding in the Coleman case would significantly aid the call for a moratorium in Virginia.
Testing of these samples will also bring finality to the family of Wanda McCoy In a case that since its beginnings has contained anything but. The doubt surrounding Coleman’s guilt was such that it led to a widely distributed book, May God Have Mercy by John Tucker, and a Time magazine cover story, both examining the flimsy evidence convicting Coleman. If the tests show Coleman to be guilty, then McCoy’s family can indeed rest knowing that Wanda’s killer was punished; if he is innocent, then the case to find her real killers can begin. The tests are a service to the family as much as they are to the public at large.