Mike Farrell, actor and human rights leader, argued in an op-ed in the Cleveland Plain Dealer that the case of Anthony Apanovitch in Ohio demonstrates several significant problems with the death penalty. Apanovitch was recently granted a new trial, 30 years after he was convicted. Evidence in Apanovitch’s case was withheld from his defense, and a DNA test was not performed until decades after the trial. “[W]hen the state seeks the penalty of death — the one punishment that is irreversible,” Farrell wrote, “there is a need for certainty that is at odds with the outrage of the public and the pressure on prosecutors.” When a DNA test was eventually performed, it excluded Apanovitch, leading a judge to acquit Apanovitch on one count of rape, dismiss another rape charge against him, remove a specification from the murder charge, and order a new trial on the remaining murder and burglary charges. Farrell, who has been involved in the case for decades, emphasized how the uncertainty of the case effected the victim’s family: “For 30 years, the Flynn family has lived with nearly unendurable pain while those in charge of our system have struggled to justify killing Anthony Apanovitch.” He concluded, “It is too soon, even after 30 years, to call this case resolved. But it is not too soon to say that the death penalty system is a failure. In fact, it is long past time for us to declare that the death penalty does not serve the interests of society, the interests of victims, or the interests of justice.”
(M. Farrell, “Anthony Apanovitch’s three decades on death row another argument for ending the death penalty: Mike Farrell (opinion),” Cleveland Plain Dealer, February 20, 2015). See New Voices and Innocence.
