Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

Former death row inmate speaks at U. Nebraska against death penalty
By Andrea Vasquez
Daily Nebraskan (U. Nebraska)
02/25/2008

(U-WIRE) LINCOLN, Neb. — Curtis McCarty was convicted in 1985 of the 1982 murder of Pamela Willis. McCarty spent 22 years, 19 of which he was on death row, in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. After an FBI investigation found evidence that McCarty was framed, he spent 11 years fighting in court before the charges against him were dismissed. In 2007, McCarty was released from prison.

Since Nebraska's Supreme Court ruled the electric chair was unconstitutional two weeks ago, McCarty has spoken on several occasions to aid the effort to abolish capital punishment in the state. He came to the University of Nebraska on Saturday to share his story.

"I know it may seem selfish of me, but it feels so good to get this off my chest," McCarty said. "I didn't know how much I hated. I didn't know the depths of my despair."

McCarty has short buzzed hair and a bushy beard and mustache. He paused often and looked into the distance while speaking. At times, he held back tears as he recounted the experience.

"I think he relives it every time he tells the story," said Megan Jackson, a volunteer with Nebraskans Against the Death Penalty.

After Willis' body was found in her kitchen with a knife in her chest, McCarty was one of the young men police placed under suspicion. At the beginning of the investigation, he was eliminated as a suspect.

Three years later, police called McCarty back for questioning after hearing a rumor he knew who killed Willis.

McCarty ended up in court, charged with murder. Entering the trial, McCarty said he felt more hope than fear.

"(I thought) the judge would protect me and the 12 men of the jury, my peers, would protect me," McCarty said.

Despite his innocence, McCarty was convicted and sent to the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.

"I got out of the van that day, wrapped in chains and surrounded by guards, taking those long, shuffling steps to cell block F, where condemned criminals were housed," McCarty said.

"Nothing can compare to that feeling of walking up that ramp and hearing those steel bars close behind you," he said.

McCarty spent most of the next decade imprisoned, while shuffling between sentencing trials.

"When people in our community tell us how bad prisons are, they're lying to us," McCarty said. "They're so much worse than what they tell us."

After the FBI investigated the Oklahoma City Police Department and found destruction of evidence in McCarty's case, he thought he was on his way out of prison. But McCarty had to wait 11 years before he would be released.

When McCarty was released in May 2007 at the end of the long, frustrating process, McCarty said he felt little relief.

"It was simply a matter of geography, not justice," McCarty said. "I was on this side of the door instead of that side."

With the help of the Innocence Project, a nonprofit organization that tries to use DNA evidence to exonerate innocent convicts, and the NADP, McCarty began telling his story only a few weeks ago.

"You have to spend time face to face with someone who might have been executed — we were trying to bring that home," said Amy Miller, the chairwoman of Nebraskans Against the Death Penalty. "We hope that for each senator, (McCarty) puts a face to the death penalty."

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