[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----TENNESSEE----Urgent Action for Philip Workman Scheduled to be Executed on May 9 in Tennessee (UA 100/07)

[Rick Halperin]

URGENT ACTION APPEAL

27 April 2007

UA 100/07               Death penalty / Legal concern

USA (Tennessee) Philip Workman (m), aged 53

Philip Workman, white, is scheduled to be executed in
Tennessee on 9 May despite compelling evidence that a key
state witness lied at the trial and that the police officer
Workman was convicted of killing may have been accidentally
shot by a fellow officer. If so, Philip Workman would be
innocent of capital murder and ineligible for the death
penalty under US law. He has been on death row for 25 years.
He has been scheduled for execution a number of times, and
in 2001 was less than an hour from execution when a court
issued a stay.

Philip Workman was convicted of the murder of Lieutenant
Ronald Oliver in the course of robbing a Memphis restaurant
on 5 August 1981. Lt Oliver and two other officers were
first to arrive at the scene. Philip Workman testified at
his 1982 trial that as he ran from the police, he fell,
attempted to surrender, and was struck on the head by an
officer. Gunfire erupted, and Lt Oliver was killed by a
single bullet. At the trial, the two surviving police
officers testified that they had not fired their weapons,
but admitted that they had not seen Workman shoot Oliver. An
alleged eyewitness, Harold Davis, said that he was standing
10 feet (three meters) away and saw Workman shoot the
officer. The defense lawyers conducted no forensic or
ballistics analysis and did not investigate Harold Davis. At
the sentencing, they presented no mitigating evidence.

Philip Workman has never denied responsibility for the
robbery that led to Lt Oliver being killed, and has not
denied firing his gun. Since the trial, however, evidence
has emerged which seriously undermines confidence in the
jury's verdict. The prosecution's key eyewitness, Harold
Davis, has retracted his testimony. The results of a
polygraph test reportedly support his recantation. So does
other evidence. No one, including police officers or
civilians, saw Davis at the scene and his car was not where
he claimed to have parked it. An eyewitness has come forward
to say that at least one of the other officers fired his
gun. This is corroborated by the first police reports, which
stated that ''officers'' had fired their weapons.

A nationally renowned forensic pathologist, Dr Cyril Wecht,
has concluded that the bullet that killed Lt Oliver did not
come from Philip Workman's gun. He bases this conclusion on
the fact that the bullets in Workman's gun were of a type
that expand when they strike a body, and therefore tend not
to exit the body. The bullet that killed Lt Oliver exited
his body, leaving an exit wound smaller than the entrance
wound. Dr Wecht's testimony in 2001 has not been refuted by
evidence presented by the prosecution in any court.

At the trial, the prosecution presented the bullet that it
said killed Lt Oliver. An employee from a nearby car parts
dealer, Terry Willis, testified that on the day after the
shooting, he found the bullet in the car park (in the middle
of the crime scene that had been searched the night before).
He testified that he had thought it was a ball bearing and
put it in a toolbox, before considering that it might have
something to do with shooting and calling the police.
However, at a 2001 clemency hearing, a former police
lieutenant said that he, not Willis, had found the bullet
that supposedly killed Lt Oliver. Workman's appeal lawyers
also claim that a digitally enhanced crime scene photo shows
an evidence cup turned upside down on the car park between
the restaurant and the car parts dealer. However, neither
the evidence cup nor the item it marked appear in the crime
scene diagram, raising questions about whether another
bullet was found that was not revealed at trial.

In 2000, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit voted
on whether to grant Philip Workman a hearing on the new
evidence. Workman required a majority vote to prevail; the
hearing was denied after the vote was tied at seven votes to
seven. In 2004, a judge on the Tennessee Supreme Court
stated that Workman had raised ''valid legal issues''
concerning whether the death of Lt Oliver was the ''result
of 'friendly fire' and not his own unlawful acts''.
Specifically, proof that the 'eyewitness' did not see
Workman shoot the officer and proof that the wound which
caused the officer's death is inconsistent with the type of
wound which would have been caused by a bullet from
Workman's gun dramatically affect the evidence in this case
and, in my opinion, may affect his eligibility for the death
penalty''. Several jurors from the original trial have
stated that they would not have voted for a first-degree
murder conviction or a death sentence if they had been
presented with the evidence that has emerged since the
trial. In 2000, with Philip Workman's execution looming, the
daughters of both Lt Oliver and Philip Workman united at a
press conference to appeal for clemency. The former District
Attorney of Shelby County, the office which prosecuted
Philip Workman, came forward in 2000 to oppose the execution
because of the post-conviction evidence.

A newly published study, conducted under the auspices of the
American Bar Association (ABA), which takes no position for
or against the death penalty per se, has found that
''Tennessee's death penalty is plagued with serious
problems''. Among these problems, the study found, were
inadequate procedures to address innocence claims,
inadequate qualification and performance standards for
defense counsel, lack of transparency in the clemency
process, and racial and geographic disparities in capital
sentencing.

Across the USA, legal challenges to the constitutionality of
lethal injection procedures continue amidst evidence that
they do not guarantee the ''humane'' and painless death that
the proponents of lethal injection claim. On 1 February
2007, Tennessee's Governor, Phil Bredesen, issued a
statement noting that the state authorities had ''identified
deficiencies with our written procedures that raise concerns
that they are not adequate to preclude mistakes''. In order
''to ensure that no cloud hangs over the state's actions in
the future'', he said, he issued an executive order
suspending executions while the Department of Correction
conducted a ''comprehensive review'' of Tennessee's
execution procedures. The Commissioner of Correction is due
to report back to the governor by 2 May, only days before
Philip Workman is due to be put to death.

In any event, ''a cloud hangs over'' Tennessee's use of the
death penalty, as shown in the new ABA report, and as
illustrated in Philip Workman's case. The UN Safeguards
Guaranteeing Protection of the Rights of Those Facing the
Death Penalty prohibit execution in cases where there is a
lack of ''clear and convincing evidence'' of the inmate's
guilt ''leaving no room for an alternative explanation of
the facts.'' This is clearly a case where execution would
contravene this standard.  Amnesty International opposes the
death penalty unconditionally. The USA has executed 1,072
men and women since resuming judicial killing in 1977.
Tennessee accounts for two of these executions.

RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly
as possible in your own words:
- expressing sympathy for the family, friends and colleagues
of Lieutenant Ronald Oliver;
- expressing deep concern that Philip Ray Workman is facing
execution on the basis of apparently perjured testimony from
the only alleged eyewitness to the shooting;
- noting expert forensic evidence that the fatal wound was
not caused by Philip Workman's bullet;
- noting that several jurors have said that they would not
have voted to convict Philip Workman of first-degree murder,
let alone vote for a death sentence, if they had been
presented with the evidence that has emerged since the
trial;
- noting that seven federal judges voted that there should
be a federal evidentiary hearing in this case, and noting
that a Tennessee Supreme Court judge has questioned
Workman's eligibility for the death penalty;
- noting the findings of the study conducted under the
auspices of the American Bar Association, including
Tennessee's inadequate procedures for addressing claims of
innocence;
- calling for Philip Workman's death sentence to be
commuted;
- appealing to Governor Bredesen to extend his moratorium on
executions, at least to allow full review of the Department
of Correction's findings on the state's execution protocols.


APPEALS TO:
Governor Phil Bredesen
Office of the Governor
State Capitol
Nashville, TN 37243-0001.
Fax: 1 615 532 9711
Email: Phil.Bredesen at state.tn.us
Salutation:     Dear Governor




PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY.

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that promotes and defends human rights.

This Urgent Action may be reposted if kept intact, including
contact information and stop action date (if applicable).
Thank you for your help with this appeal.

Urgent Action Network
Amnesty International USA
600 Pennsylvania Ave SE 5th fl
Washington DC 20003
Email: uan at aiusa.org
http://www.amnestyusa.org/urgent/
Phone: 202.544.0200
Fax:     202.675.8566

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END OF URGENT ACTION APPEAL
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