67 Leuchter's "credibility," or rather, his lack of same, among American prison administrators (Holocaust: Leuchter)
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This article is from the Holocaust FAQ, by Ken McVay kmcvay@nizkor.org with numerous contributions by others.
67 Leuchter's "credibility," or rather, his lack of same, among American prison administrators (Holocaust: Leuchter)
On July 20,1990, Alabama Assistant Attorney General Ed Carnes
sent a memo to all capital-punishment states questioning
Leuchter's credentials and credibility. Carnes stated that not
only were Leuchter's views on the gas-chamber process
'unorthodox' but that he was running a shakedown scheme. If a
state refused to use his services, Leuchter would testify at the
last minute on behalf of the inmate, claiming that the state's
gas chamber might malfunction. <Memorandum from Ed Carnes,
Alabama Assistant Attorney General, to all Capital Punishment
States July 20,1990; Shapiro 'Truth Prevails' pp. 17 and 21;
Newsweek, Oct. 22, 1990, p. 64; Swampscott Journal, Nov. 1,
1990.> According to Carnes, Leuchter made 'money on both sides
of the fence.' <Associated Press, October 24, 1990>. Describing
Leuchter's behavior in Virginia, Florida, and Alabama, Carnes
observed that in less than thirty days Leuchter had testified in
three states that their electric-chair technology was too old
and unreliable to be used. In Florida and Virginia the federal
courts had rejected Leuchter's testimony as unreliable. In
Florida the court had found that Leuchter had 'misquoted the
statements' contained in an important affidavit and had
'inaccurately surmised' a crucial premise of his conclusion
<Carnes, Op.Cit., 2>. In Virginia, Leuchter provided a
death-row inmate's attorney with an affidavit claiming the
electric chair would fail. The Virginia court decided the
credibility of Leuchter's affidavit was limited because Leuchter
was "the refused contractor who bid to replace the electrodes in
the Virginia chair <Shapiro, "Truth Prevails, 22>." (Lipstadt,
170)
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