DNA confirms guilt of executed Virginia inmate

As detailed in posts at TalkLeft and How Appealing, DNA tests have now confirmed the guilt of Roger Coleman, the defendant executed in Virginia who had proclaimed his innocence in a slaying and rape.  Though this interesting development is unlikely to alter the death penalty debate as much as if the DNA test came out the other way, I suspect this finding will be rightly used by death penalty supporters to highlight that death row defendants’ claims of innocence must always be examined with skepticism.

UPDATE:  This post at NewsBusters notes how the news of Coleman’s guilt has disappointed abolitionists, and recalls that “back in 1992 Roger Keith Coleman was Time magazine’s cover boy against the death penalty.  Time ran the following over a photo of Coleman in chains: ‘This Man Might Be Innocent, This Man Is Due To Die’.”  The post concludes with this fitting query: “In 1992 Time went to bat for this murderer, the question is will they report how wrong they were in next week’s print edition.”