The Duke Human Rights Center was lucky to be a part of an event marking the end of an art exhibition examining the human cost of capital punishment. Malaquias Montoya, the artist, is well known for his political work (and his images are familiar to me from having lived in Berkeley in the 1980s and seen innumerable advertisements for local music, often featuring Montoya’s images).
We hosted State Sen. Floyd McKissick, Jr., who sponsored the Racial Justice Act, passed this summer. This act allows defendants charged with capital crimes to present evidence showing that race is a factor in their prosecutions or convictions.
And no case shows racial bias more starkly that that of Darryl Hunt. Convicted of a rape and murder he did not commit, he spent 19 years in jail before being exonerated. DNA evidence showed that another man committed the crime. The other man then confessed.
For 19 years, Hunt claimed his innocence. Once, he was even offered a plea of time served and his lawyers urged him to take it. But he was innocent and turned them down. Years passed before he was fully cleared.
I was able to have Hunt come speak to my human rights class (picture below). What I was most amazed by was what he said about the families of the victims. Just as he was wrongly accused for 19 years, the family of the young woman so brutally murdered was lied to by prosecutors, who knew early on that they had the wrong man. Meanwhile, the man who actually was the murdered continued to rape and beat women, almost killing one of his victims.
So the cost of convicting the innocent is not just measured in their lives, but also in the lives of the victims’ family members, and the members of communities still at risk.
A very moving and thoughtful presentation…
Darryl Hunt with human rights students