Ring of truth

This week Charles Graner testified in the court martial of Lynndie England that the famous leash was a tether for moving prisoners.

Ohio has executed 16 men since 1999. By law, the death penalty was reestablished in 1981, an 18-year lead time.

One of those executed was William Zuern. Zuern was sitting on his porch on a nice spring day in an old Cincinnati area neighborhood, the kind where everything is wood frame and the lots are small, so everyone can see everyone. He was with friends, and other people were out also. A car pulled up, dropped off a young man, Zuern's age, who was rumored to be a narc. Zuern walked over to the guy, walked away from the crowd, and shot him and killed him. Right in front of everyone.

That wasn't why Zuern was executed, though. That was why Zuern was arrested. He was being held in the Hamilton County jail, a place that has since been torn down, but was a real 19th Century hole. His cell didn't even have a light in it, and it looked like a cave in a wall of concrete.

Zuern took a metal handle from a bucket and made a shiv. When Sheriff's Deputy Phillip Pence came to take Zuern out of his cell, searching, in fact, for the shiv, a second deputy pulled open the door while Pence stood in front preparing to guide Zuern out of the cell so it could be searched. Zuern lunged and poked, striking a single, fatal blow. Pence died quickly.

So when Graner started talking about tethers, it struck me suddenly that he may well have been railroaded. That's obvious, I suppose. It's been clear from the beginning that this was overhype. Prison abuse may be a problem, but it's a widespread problem. When we randomly pluck a few people out here and there, not because of abuse, but because it serves some other purpose, we are not serving ourselves well.