Roger Keith Coleman: Must This Man Die?

Roger Keith Coleman says he didn't kill anybody, but the courts are tired of listening. That could be a tragic mistake.

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This final habeas corpus appeal offers seven reasons why Coleman should be granted an evidentiary hearing that will enable him to prove his innocence. Behan believes that she has "overwhelming" evidence someone else killed Wanda and that if a hearing is granted, her evidence of Coleman's innocence will prevail. Her fear is that she will never be able to make the case. "I think we're going to run out of time," she says, "and that's what's so frustrating." As of late last week, a federal district judge had not yet ruled on Coleman's petition. If Coleman loses his appeal, he can take it to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, then to the Supreme Court. These days that final trip hardly seems worth the effort.

There is one other remote possibility. At present, claims of innocence based on new evidence that raise no constitutional violation are not reviewable in habeas corpus proceedings. A Texas case pending before the Supreme Court, Herrera v. Collins, seeks to establish a constitutional connection: that carrying out executions in the face of unexamined new evidence is cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the Eighth Amendment. It is a longshot gamble that the decision will go in Herrera's favor; it is an even longer shot that the decision will come down in time for Coleman to use that argument.

Given the hostility of the federal courts to multiple petitions, Coleman's lawyers might do better to train their sights on the clemency hearing. Governor Wilder, a former defense attorney, may be willing to listen where the courts are not. Beyond the discarded sheets and the condition of Coleman's clothing, there are other points that raise a reasonable doubt:

-- In late 1991 Grundy resident Teresa Horn signed an affidavit swearing that another man in the county had confessed to Wanda's murder. Last March, Horn voiced her charges in an interview on a Roanoke TV station; the next day she was found dead. The circumstances have yet to be explained convincingly. Over the past three weeks, four more witnesses came forward, all with stories pointing to the same man. He denies the allegations.

-- Coleman was arrested on the police theory that Wanda opened the door to the intruder. Police subsequently discovered a pry mark on the door molding, just 3 in. up from the floor, and a fingerprint. Plainly, if tests had identified the fingerprint as belonging to Coleman, the jury would have heard.

-- The jailhouse snitch's version of Coleman's "confession" put another man on the murder scene. Other evidence -- including inconclusive traces of sodomy ) -- supports the possibility that two men were involved. Under Virginia's "triggerman" statute, a defendant can be executed only if he is the one who actually killed the victim. Even if Coleman was one of the two culprits, there is a question whether he was the murderer.

-- Frank Hinkle, the police deputy who had been assigned to trail Coleman right after the murder, swore two months ago in an affidavit, "I believe that the principal reason for Mr. Coleman's arrest and trial was to reassure the community that a perpetrator had been found." Hinkle was never summoned as a defense witness.

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