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Anti-death penalty crusader tells story
Gary Beeman was sent to death row for a murder he didn't commit.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
DAYTON — Gary Beeman said he is still haunted by the distraught expression on his father's face when police announced at the Lake County Jail that Gary Beeman was being indicted for a murder he didn't commit.
He was later sentenced to death.
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Beeman of Ashtabula said the emotional and physical toll of being stuck on death row led him to two decades of alcohol and drug abuse.
Now five years sober, Beeman travels the country speaking against capital punishment. He joined other death penalty critics Wednesday night in a discussion of the topic at Sinclair Community College's Ponitz Center.
"I thought we had a good enough system that innocence would ultimately prevail," said Beeman, who won an appeal and was later able to have his conviction overturned in 1978.
Beeman was convicted of aggravated murder in 1976. Throughout his first trial, Beeman maintained that Claire Liuzzo, who was once locked up with Beeman and was the prosecution's main witness against Beeman, was the killer.
Beeman later cross-examined Liuzzo during his second trial and convinced a jury of his innocence.
Attorneys in the fight to reform death penalty statutes in Ohio addressed other death penalty cases during the nearly two-hour session sponsored by the Ohio chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
The discussion, attended by about 15 people, highlighted legal cases on the issue.
"(The determination for who dies under the state's death penalty) is totally random and arbitrary. It's like flipping a coin," said Jeffrey Gamso, legal director for ACLU in Ohio.
Critics also have a campaign urging 10,000 Ohioans to send Gov. Ted Strickland postcards asking him to halt the executions of three death row inmates.
