A (current) judge who helped prosecute the case takes issue with the innocence claim.

I should note that the debate over facts is not my moral argument against the whole execution business. I think the man shouldn’t have been killed, period, with or without the New Yorker. Capital punishment isn’t intrinsically evil, there are times when it may be necessary. But those strike me as rare — if not inconceivable — instances in the U.S. in 2009.

Speaking of George Will, Ramesh wrote this response to him when he announced his opposition to capital punishment.