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Posthumous Pardons

Quote:

ALBANY, Georgia (AP) -- The only woman ever executed in Georgia's electric chair is being granted a posthumous pardon, 60 years after the black maid was put to death for killing a white man she claimed held her in slavery and threatened her life.

The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has decided to pardon Lena Baker and plans to present a proclamation to her descendants at its August 30 meeting in Atlanta, board spokeswoman Scheree Lipscomb said Monday.

The board did not find Baker innocent of the crime, Lipscomb said. Members instead found the decision to deny her clemency in 1945 "was a grievous error, as this case called out for mercy," Lipscomb said.

Baker was sentenced to die following a one-day trial before an all-white, all-male jury in Georgia.

"I believe she's somewhere around God's throne and can look down and smile," said Baker's grandnephew, Roosevelt Curry, who has led the family's effort to clear her name.

John Cole Vodicka, director of the Georgia-based Prison & Jail Project, a prison-advocacy group that assisted Baker's descendants with the pardon request, said he was elated with the decision.

"Although in some ways it's 60 years too late, it's gratifying to see that this blatant instance of injustice has finally been recognized for what it was -- a legal lynching," Vodicka said.

During her brief trial, Baker testified that E.B. Knight, a man she had been hired to care for, held her against her will in a grist mill and threatened to shoot her if she tried to leave. She said she grabbed Knight's gun and shot him when he raised a metal bar to strike her.

After Baker's execution in 1945, Baker's body was buried in an unmarked grave behind a small church where she had been a choir member. In the late 1990s, the congregation marked the grave with a cement slab.

Supporters have gathered at Baker's grave every year since 2001 to mark the date of her execution, and Curry, along with a few dozen surviving family members, hosted a Mother's Day ceremony at the graveside in 2003, the same year he requested the pardon.

State records indicate that 20 women have been executed in Georgia, 19 by hanging and Baker by electrocution. One woman sits on Georgia's death row today.

Are posthumous pardons worth the effort that it takes, would the time spent be better used on people who are still alive and really have a chance to benefit from the pardon?

I think the time spent on this was more for precident than for anything to benefit the one previously convicted. It's purpose is probably intended to prevent more unjust decisions in the future.

It's not the family who benefits -it's the state of Georgia. See they aren't racist anymore -they got the pardon to prove it.

I don't think it has to be an "either-or" choice. Clearing the innocent who are still alive is, of course, important, but so is the gesture of pardoning people who have already died. It doesn't just benefit the family, but as raeanna pointed out, it sets a precedent. I won't say that it's never too late to get justice, but at least this is a token of progress on the part of the state in recognizing and rectifying its past mistakes.

Since this is a pardon, rather than an aquital, I don't see the point. She's still guilty; but we forgive her. I might see the point of an aquital where the state says "Gee, I guess we were wrong, she didn't do it after all".

I'd rather focus on the living.

I voted "Yes, clearing a person's name is important for the family", simply because if the state has the stones to undertake the responsibility of putting people to death, then it also should have the stones to pony up to a "mistake". This isn't something that you can just look at the facts and say; "Oops...our bad."

As an aside, incidents such as this, is one of the many reasons that I went from being a staunch supporter of the death penalty, to doing a complete 180 degree reversal in opinion. That's for another thread, however.