BOOKS: ​“The Wrong Carlos” Argues Texas Executed an Innocent Man

One of the strongest accounts point­ing to the exe­cu­tion of a prob­a­bly inno­cent man in recent times con­cerns the case of Carlos DeLuna, who was exe­cut­ed in Texas in 1989. In a forth­com­ing book, The Wrong Carlos: Anatomy of a Wrongful Execution, Professor James Liebman of Columbia Law School describes his inves­ti­ga­tion into the case, along with a team of stu­dents. The inves­ti­ga­tion uncov­ered seri­ous prob­lems in DeLuna’s case, includ­ing faulty eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny and the police’s fail­ure to inves­ti­gate anoth­er poten­tial sus­pect. DeLuna main­tained his inno­cence and said anoth­er man, Carlos Hernandez, com­mit­ted the crime. Hernandez and DeLuna looked so sim­i­lar that their own fam­i­lies mis­took pho­tos of the men for each oth­er. Moreover, Hernandez had a his­to­ry of vio­lent crimes like the one for which DeLuna was exe­cut­ed. The book and its accom­pa­ny­ing web­site pro­vide evi­dence of a grave mis­take with police and wit­ness records, tri­al tran­scripts, pho­tographs, and more. The Wrong Carlos will be released in July 2014 but is avail­able for pre-order now.

(J. Liebman, ​“The Wrong Carlos: Anatomy of a Wrongful Execution,” Columbia University Press, forth­com­ing July 2014). See Books and Innocence.