Yesterday at 6:32 p.m., the State of Florida put Wayne Tompkins to death.  Unfortunately, this event in itself is not unusual, even despite the fact that Tompkins protested his innocence of the rape/murder of his girlfriend’s 15 year old daughter some 25 years earlier. 

What is notable about this execution is an email I received yesterday afternoon from the Innocence Project of Florida, sent a laundry list of blawgers seeking our aid in raising awareness of the possibility that Tompkins was an innocent man.

My name is Ryan Jenkins. I’m the Outreach Coordinator for the Innocence Project of Florida, an organization that works to find and free innocent people in Florida prisons. I’m writing because our organization is very troubled by the impending execution of Wayne Tompkins in Florida, scheduled for tonight at 6 PM, and we are looking for your help to spread awareness of the issue. We believe there are very serious doubts about whether Tompkins is guilty of murder – because the body in the case might not be that of the alleged victim, meaning no murder even took place. Several individuals have signed affidavits saying they have seen the victim alive since the alleged murder, but the Governor has failed to stay the execution.

Yesterday, we sent a letter to Governor Charlie Crist. Today, we filed a motion to preserve the evidence in the case, signaling our intent to go ahead with DNA testing, even if Tompkins is executed. One day soon, the truth will come out, and perhaps Governor Crist will become the first in US history to execute a man who was proven to be innocent.

What follows is our summary of facts and a call to action. Then we have Governor Crist’s email and his phone number. Attached are our press releases from yesterday and this morning. Please pass this along to your readers, as we are trying to generate support and an outcry from concerned citizens everywhere. We have less than 6 hours in which to act.

It’s the last line that got to me.  “We have less than 6 hours in which to act.”  The substantive argument is that the body found was not that of 15 year old Lisa DeCarr, that a jail house snitch was a set up and a pivotal witness had changed her story, making it impossible for Tompkins to have strangled the child.  The email doesn’t provide enough to assess the merits of the arguments, but suggests that actual innocence, for lack of a better description, may be provable.  I’ve included the body of the email at the bottom for anyone who wants to learn more about the substance of the argument.

But it doesn’t matter now.  Wayne Tompkins is dead.  As far as I can tell, only one blawg, Co-Op, posted about the email yesterday,  If there are others, let me know, but I’ve been unable to find any.  Don’t blame the blawgs or blawgers, as we aren’t sitting at the computers awaiting emergency calls to arms at all times.  We have work and lives too.  And frankly, it wouldn’t have mattered, coming mere hours before the execution was set to proceed.

Executions don’t happen overnight.  They take forever before the needle finally goes into the arm.  While each life taken by the state matters, most are a blip in the grand scheme of things.  They shouldn’t be, but they are.  There are simply too many wrongs on any given day to focus on every human being executed.  But those who do focus on it are well aware ahead of time that the date is coming.

The power of the blawgosphere is spotty.  Sometimes, we seem to be able to have an impact.  We can raise consciousness about a particular case or defendant, and it seems (though it’s never exactly clear) that we can provide some help in influencing those who have the power to make the critical decision over life and death.  Whether this is real or our imagination is hard to say.  Who knows that makes a court decide something, or a Governor stay an execution.  They don’t announce that they were swayed by public outcry, and certainly not the blawgosphere.  People would think they are nuts if they did.

But to the extent that we can offer some help, don’t do it this way.  Most of us really want to serve a greater cause, and one such cause is to save an innocent person from execution.  But this isn’t a six hour parlor trick.  If it’s going to work at all, give us a chance to do something.  Why did you not spread the word a week ago?  A day ago?  But 6 hours isn’t enough.

I have no clue whether Wayne Tompkins is an innocent man.  I pray he wasn’t because now he’s dead.  I have enormous respect for the Innocence Project of Florida, and that they asserted his potential innocence is good enough for me to give them the benefit of the doubt.  But like any good skeptic, I want to do a little checking before hitching my wagon to a cause.  There was no time to do so here.  I have no plans to do so after the fact as an academic exercise.  There are too many living people who are better served by our attention.

If you want to help stop an innocent man from being executed, you’re going to have to give us more than six hours.  Now, we’re left with a sense of having failed, but we might have been able to help.  We just didn’t have enough time.

More information from the email on Wayne Tompkins’ innocence:

On March 24th 1983, Barbara DeCarr, Lisa DeCarr’s mother, filed a missing persons report alleging her daughter ran away from home for no apparent reason.  She claimed Lisa was having some trouble at school but nothing that would have lead her to runaway and she did not take any of her belongings with her.

Over the next year, Barbara DeCarr maintained her story and reported to the police various sightings of Lisa she had been contacted about.  On June 6th 1984 a volunteer organization conducted a search of Barbara’s old house and underneath the front porch found a shallow grave containing human bones.  Police identified the bones as belonging to Lisa DeCarr based on information from her Mother and a partial dental records match on a single tooth.

Following the discovery of Lisa’s body, Barbara DeCarr told police that her former boyfriend Wayne Tompkins was the last person to see Lisa alive.  Based on this information Mr. Tompkins was indicted.  In March of 1985 the prosecutor contacted Kathy Stevens, Lisa’s friend.  Her initial story had been that Lisa had run away to New York and kept in touch with her however, after speaking with prosecutors she changed her story claiming she had witnessed Mr. Tompkins strangle Lisa on the Morning of March 24th 1983 around 8:30 am.  Prior to trial, Kenneth Turco, Tompkins’ cell mate, came forward alleging that Wayne Tompkins had confessed to the murder of Lisa DeCarr.  Turco had previously served as a confidential informant and his confession was so aligned with Kathy Steven’s story that the defense argued he must have had access to her statements.  At this point Barbara DeCarr changed her initial story that Tompkins took her son to school the day of Lisa’s disappearance and returned after 9:00 am to she left at 8:30 am and that Tompkins was still at the house, making Kathy’s story possible.

In the course of collateral proceedings exculpatory evidence has come forward which demonstrates Kathy Steven’s story may have been largely untrue.  In post-conviction proceedings Tompkins learned that Kathy had changed her story only after getting access to her incarcerated boyfriend and there were a number of witness’ statements in the school records which claimed that Lisa ran away when she became pregnant and had been seen in April and May of 1983. In 1989 Tompkins presented the testimony of Gladys Staley who testified she spoke with Lisa in the early afternoon of March 24th of 1983.  Gladys had informed the police of this interaction however the prosecution did not list her as a witness and the defense was not informed of her statements.  In 2002 Lisa’s boyfriend James “Junior” Davis contradicted Kathy Stevens account in a sworn affidavit that he had not seen Kathy the morning of the disappearance as she claimed.  On October 30th 2008 the state disclosed a sworn statement from Kenneth Turco, the jail house informant, which stated the prosecution told him to include the fact that Lisa was buried with a purse in his story, a major element of the prosecution’s theory, and then following his testimony Mr. Turco’s charges which he had already pled guilty to were dismissed. Mr. Tomkins maintains his innocence to this day.

Govenor Charlie Crist stayed the execution of Wayne Tompkins on October 6, 2008, to allow time for DNA testing. Such testing could show that the body that was found under the porch was not that of the victim, Lisa DeCarr, at all, meaning Tompkins was convicted of a murder that never took place. Now, he is only half a day away from being executed. The troubling aspects of this case are myriad. Involved are bad eyewitness testimony, changing stories after interrogations, a questionable jailhouse snitch, bad forensic science, DNA testing’s unprecendented probative value being ignored, and the possibility of actual innocence coupled with an impending execution. It’s hard to imagine a more convoluted and unreliable process of justice playing out in our system. Please take this opportunity to call or email Governor Crist. Florida could become the first state to execute an innocent man. Concerned citizens everywhere should act now.