Summary and Analysis of The Wrong Carlos: Anatomy of a Wrongful Execution: Based on the Book by James S. Liebman
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This short summary and analysis of The Wrong Carlos: Anatomy of a Wrongful Execution by James S. Liebman and the Columbia DeLuna Project includes:
- Historical context
- Chapter-by-chapter summaries
- Detailed timeline of important events
- Important quotes
- Fascinating trivia
- Glossary of terms
About James S. Liebman and the Columbia DeLuna Project’s The Wrong Carlos: Anatomy of a Wrongful Execution:
The Wrong Carlos calls into question the United States justice system and its ability to impose the death penalty with impartiality and certainty through an in-depth examination of an obscure capital murder case from the 1980s.
In Corpus Christi, Texas, a man named Carlos DeLuna was executed for the murder of Wanda Vargas Lopez, while a man who looked just like him, Carlos Hernandez, escaped conviction for killing her and others.
Columbia Law School professor James S. Liebman and his team from the Columbia DeLuna Project delve into this case of mistaken identity to study how factors such as race, poverty, and reliance upon eyewitness testimony can contribute to erroneous death penalty convictions.
In a country where capital punishment remains controversial, The Wrong Carlos asks its readers to consider whether irreversible conviction at the hands of a flawed system is the type of justice Americans want to see served.
The summary and analysis in this ebook are intended to complement your reading experience and bring you closer to a great work of nonfiction.
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Summary and Analysis of The Wrong Carlos - Worth Books
Contents
Context
Overview
Summary
Timeline
Cast of Characters
Direct Quotes and Analysis
Trivia
What’s That Word?
Critical Response
About James S. Liebman
About the Columbia DeLuna Project
For Your Information
Bibliography
Copyright
Context
The Wrong Carlos, published in 2014, calls into question the efficacy of the US justice system and its ability to impose the death penalty with accuracy and certainty. James S. Liebman and his coauthors from the Columbia DeLuna Project (CDP) examine these questions through the lens of a relatively obscure 1980s case from Corpus Christi, Texas, in which a man named Carlos DeLuna was executed for the murder of Wanda Vargas Lopez. Liebman happened upon the case while researching unreliable eyewitness testimony in capital cases, but it had a further twist: DeLuna maintained his innocence from his arrest until his execution, and insisted that a man named Carlos Hernandez was the true culprit.
His story sounded unlikely, but in 2004 Liebman and the CDP began six years of investigation that led to The Wrong Carlos and its ultimate conclusion: The state of Texas executed Carlos DeLuna for Carlos Hernandez’s crime in December 1989. Their painstaking examination of old and new evidence has convinced the Lopez family, governing officials, and countless others that DeLuna was the victim of a wrongful execution. In a country where support for the death penalty remains controversial, The Wrong Carlos asks its readers to seriously consider whether irreversible conviction at the hands of a flawed system is the type of justice Americans want to see served.
Overview
On February 4, 1983, a young woman named Wanda Vargas Lopez was stabbed while she worked alone as a gas station clerk in Corpus Christi, Texas. Within an hour, a twenty-year-old Hispanic man named Carlos DeLuna was pulled from under a truck a few blocks away and arrested for her murder. Five months later, DeLuna was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death on the strength of one witness’s testimony.
DeLuna could have avoided the death penalty if he had accepted a plea deal, but he staunchly maintained his innocence, accusing a different man, Carlos Hernandez, another Hispanic man from Corpus Christi. No one gave serious weight to this claim until 2004, when James S. Liebman singled out the case as a candidate to exemplify errors in eyewitness identification. Investigator Peso Chavez spent a day in Corpus Christi to see if he could learn anything about the case. Linda Perales was the first person who agreed to talk to him—she had at one time or another married into both the Hernandez family and the DeLuna family. Perales verified Carlos Hernandez’s existence and directed Chavez to his niece, Pricilla Hernandez, who described overhearing a confession from Uncle Carlos. She also remembered Hernandez’s birthdate, which allowed investigators to