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Old 08-14-2018, 10:43 AM
 
Location: Texas
13,480 posts, read 8,287,453 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SlowMotionApocalypse View Post
I am mainly going by the post conviction confession to his lawyers. And there is some dispute as to how mentally handicapped he is. As in retarded? Probably not. Just a total moron? Most definitely..
It's so easy for police to get a mentally handicapped person to confess to a crime they didn't do. Especially a young person.
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Old 08-14-2018, 11:36 AM
 
Location: Los Angeles
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PriscillaVanilla View Post
It's so easy for police to get a mentally handicapped person to confess to a crime they didn't do. Especially a young person.

Of course. It's the completely unnecessary and absolutely convincing final confession that erases any reasonable doubt.
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Old 08-14-2018, 11:41 AM
 
17,379 posts, read 14,911,744 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PriscillaVanilla View Post
Was any of the 3 young men's DNA found at the crime scene? It was been unusual for none of 3 convicted people's DNA to be found anywhere at a crime scene.

No.. However, unknown DNA has been found, as has a hair from Terry Hobbs and DNA from David Jacoby, a friend of Hobbs. This, however, could just be transfer. One of the hairs from Hobbs was actually found in a knot from one of the ropes used to tie the boys.



Quote:
Originally Posted by SlowMotionApocalypse View Post
And I know usually anyone going to the bathroom within 5 miles of a crime scene is the obvious first suspect.

anyone who came into a bathroom covered in blood.. Yes.. They would be an obvious suspect. They should have warranted the responding officer doing more than driving through the drive thru of the restaurant.



I'd suggest reading and watching multiple things on the case. The problem is that most of it is slanted towards the defendants. I appreciate you including opposing views. You can't form a cohesive opinion based on seeing one side of things only.

I stick by the fact that with all the evidence included.. There is reasonable doubt. I do believe that the Alford plea was the best solution for all involved. The state could not retry them and win, and the court cases were all heading towards the case being retried.

The Paradise Lost trilogy was always solidly on the side of the WM3.. And posited theories that ultimately washed out. John Mark Byers was touted as being a suspect, and he certainly did things to make himself a suspect. Having all your teeth pulled once rumors of bite marks start going around causes people to question what you might be hiding.

There are two things that I will point to.. First, the evidence against them I do not find strong enough for a conviction. Do I say they are innocent? No.. But they are Not Guilty.

Second.. Let's say that i'm wrong and these three killed the three boys exactly as prosecutors say they did. Are these the type of people who you think would have gotten it out of their system? There would be something fundamentally wrong with them, mentally.. Has to be for someone to do this. Do you think they would kill again? Why haven't they?

By all accounts, the WM3 have been model citizens since release. That is another factor that lends me to thinking they didn't do it. Someone who commits the crime they did.. I don't think is a one-and-done situation.
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Old 08-14-2018, 12:00 PM
 
Location: Southern MN
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I agree with you, Labonte, that in order to come to any conclusion about this or any case it is helpful to read everything you can find, both pro and con. That was one of the things I liked about the podcast series. I think they did a good job of interviewing people on both sides of the fence and offering alternate , feasible explanations for a great deal of the evidence.
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Old 08-14-2018, 12:26 PM
 
Location: Los Angeles
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Labonte18 View Post

Second.. Let's say that i'm wrong and these three killed the three boys exactly as prosecutors say they did. Are these the type of people who you think would have gotten it out of their system? There would be something fundamentally wrong with them, mentally.. Has to be for someone to do this. Do you think they would kill again? Why haven't they?

Completely irrelevant. Mainly because they were locked up. And if it was impulse and pack behavior, the pack was broken up and additional impulses suppressed by circumstances.



Quote:

By all accounts, the WM3 have been model citizens since release. That is another factor that lends me to thinking they didn't do it. Someone who commits the crime they did.. I don't think is a one-and-done situation.

Again, completely irrelevant. Adolescents have more issues with impulse control than adults do.



But NOT committing a dozen murders is never grounds to absolve anyone of three murders.
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Old 08-14-2018, 12:53 PM
 
14,301 posts, read 14,095,170 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SlowMotionApocalypse View Post
I am mainly going by the post conviction confession to his lawyers. And there is some dispute as to how mentally handicapped he is. As in retarded? Probably not. Just a total moron? Most definitely.



And I know usually anyone going to the bathroom within 5 miles of a crime scene is the obvious first suspect.
He has a measured IQ of 72. Seventy two is within the range of a mental disability.

Confessions are simply not reliable in many cases as a form of evidence. Only one of these boys was eighteen when this crime was committed. The one that confessed was sixteen or seventeen.

Aside from the confession, there was not much in the way of evidence.

What we were dealing with was a small Arkansas city police department that was in over its head. They could have asked for help from the Arkansas State Police during the initial stages of the investigation, but they chose not to do so. A real investigation may have developed more evidence.

The DNA testing that has been subsequently done suggests there could have been other perpetrators at the crime scene and does not tie any of those convicted to the crime itself.

Add to that mix a biased jury. This trial took place in the Bible Belt around the time that many people were talking about satanic cults springing up around the country. This kind of a thing was widely believed in places like Arkansas and undoubtedly created some prejudice against the defendants. Than, we subsequently learn that some of the jurors were considering "evidentiary sources" that were not presented during trial as part of their basis for convicting the defendants.

I do not know whether the West Memphis 3 were innocent. What I do know is that proof beyond a reasonable doubt did not exist for their conviction. I would rather occasionally release a guilty person from prison than let innocent people suffer there or worse (the one defendant got the death penalty).

All in all, I am very suspicious of criminal trials conducted in rural southern areas. I question if anyone really gets a fair trial in these communities.
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Old 08-14-2018, 01:50 PM
 
Location: Texas
13,480 posts, read 8,287,453 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by markg91359 View Post
All in all, I am very suspicious of criminal trials conducted in rural southern areas. I question if anyone really gets a fair trial in these communities.
I had a relative convicted of a crime in Arkansas, there's definitely a back woods mentality going on in some of those areas. There is a lynch mob mentality. This is also Bible Belt country and there are strange fears and superstitions. I have a very educated relative who moved to Arkansas and within about ten years, she adopted some of the bizarre religious beliefs of the small minded, small town people where she lived. There is also intense racism there.
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Old 08-14-2018, 02:32 PM
 
17,379 posts, read 14,911,744 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SlowMotionApocalypse View Post
Completely irrelevant. Mainly because they were locked up. And if it was impulse and pack behavior, the pack was broken up and additional impulses suppressed by circumstances.






Again, completely irrelevant. Adolescents have more issues with impulse control than adults do.



But NOT committing a dozen murders is never grounds to absolve anyone of three murders.

They haven't been locked up for 7 years.. What trouble have they been in?

you think that someone who could do this could function perfectly fine in society?

In all honesty, there's one of the three that I suspect less overall.. That's Baldwin. Echols I think was his own worst enemy. He thought he was smarter than people and his attitude made him a suspect. Miskelley confessed, multiple times, though most of those confessions were light on details and the ones that did include details, the details were wrong.

Another part that sends me down the not guilty road.. The prosecution's position here is that these three killed the three boys.. And got not one drop of the victims blood on them? Luminol existed in the 90's. The only blood evidence I can recall is that a necklace had blood of the same type as one of the victims.

Proving they did something and suspecting they did something are two different things.
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Old 08-14-2018, 02:33 PM
 
Location: Shawnee-on-Delaware, PA
7,933 posts, read 7,280,404 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PriscillaVanilla View Post
That's really sad.

I'm also familiar with this area of the country they were from, and it's very influenced by fundamentalist Christian religious beliefs.

It's scary, I'm actually worried my kids might get wrongly convicted for something some day. I know someone it happened to. Took a long time to clear their son's name. He'd been in the same area that a knife fight happened but he had nothing to do with it.

Ever hear of the Central Park 5? They were wrongly convicted in a city (New York) that is nearly untouched by "fundamentalist Christian beliefs". It can happen anywhere. All you need is a zealous prosecutor combined with a police force who desperately need a conviction.
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Old 08-14-2018, 02:35 PM
 
Location: Shawnee-on-Delaware, PA
7,933 posts, read 7,280,404 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by markg91359 View Post

All in all, I am very suspicious of criminal trials conducted in rural southern areas. I question if anyone really gets a fair trial in these communities.
The Fells Acres "ritual Satanic child abuse" case happened in Boston. Not in a rural southern area.


It can happen anywhere.
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