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Maybe you misstated this, but many people have been proven innocent due to DNA< meaning they were put in prison and proven innocent after the fact. Read through the Innocence Project for some good stories.
Someone who was executed, and yes, I was not clear on that.
People being found innocent after DNA testing happens damn near every day. Death Row prisoners being exonerated.. Less frequently, but it still happens.
And, of course, there have been cases where someone executed has been proven innocent from the distant past. There have been cases where any reasonable person would say there was enough doubt to prevent someone from being executed.
But, there has not been that case since.. The 70's.. Of someone conclusively proven to be innocent after having been executed.
The case someone else mentioned was back in 2006 where Virginia tested the DNA of Roger Keith Coleman, who had proclaimed his innocence.. DNA came back as a match.
That was a foot in the ass of his supporters and the people who jumped on his bandwagon.
I support the death penalty, but.. One innocent person executed is too many. That simply cannot happen. It's not a matter of "well, we get it right 99% of the time".. It's got to be right 100% of the time. If that means it's only used in 'slam dunk' cases.. So be it.
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I support the death penalty, but.. One innocent person executed is too many. That simply cannot happen. It's not a matter of "well, we get it right 99% of the time".. It's got to be right 100% of the time. If that means it's only used in 'slam dunk' cases.. So be it.
I have no specifically moral objection to the death penalty, and I think there are some obvious cases where it's warranted, like Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, serial killers, and their ilk.
That said I am now opposed, in general, to the death penalty for premeditated murder, regardless of motive, because aside from the possibility of error, it leads to a seemingly endless appeals process which burdens our already clogged courts at hideous and wasteful cost.
I believe that the death penalty should be RARELY sought for ordinary murder and should only be available after meeting a higher standard of proof, namely (at minimum) when two of the following three requirements are met:
1. An uncoerced confession from a lucid individual,
2. Incontrovertible physical evidence,
3. Eyewitness testimony from an individual who is NOT a stranger, as such testimony is often horribly flawed.
This standard would usually be met if convicted killers murder officers of the law.
Like I said, I don't object to execution in all cases, nor for moral reasons.
But I have come to think that the juice of capital punishment is no longer worth the squeeze.
There was also an article about this in the NYT today. From reading the articles, it sounds as if the evidence was weak, and circumstantial, and that the confession was coerced, and did not show evidence of any knowledge of the crime. I think they're going to find that his DNA was not on her clothing. This could be the first incontrovertible evidence that an innocent man was executed for a crime he didn't commit, in post Jim Crow America.
Were this to be found to be the case, it would be a very powerful argument against the death penalty in the US.
I disagree.
There is and always has been room for error in death penalty cases in our society (as is the case with criminal cases in general). This is why the standard is beyond a reasonable doubt, not without any doubt. While an innocent person being put to death (and its not clear that this is what happened here, though it undoubtedly has occurred in this country's history) is tragic, it is not an argument against the death penalty for me, especially if it can't be shown that such is widespread.
There was also an article about this in the NYT today. From reading the articles, it sounds as if the evidence was weak, and circumstantial, and that the confession was coerced, and did not show evidence of any knowledge of the crime. I think they're going to find that his DNA was not on her clothing. This could be the first incontrovertible evidence that an innocent man was executed for a crime he didn't commit, in post Jim Crow America.
Were this to be found to be the case, it would be a very powerful argument against the death penalty in the US.
And that is the reason that capital punishment should not be allowed.
Maybe you misstated this, but many people have been proven innocent due to DNA< meaning they were put in prison and proven innocent after the fact. Read through the Innocence Project for some good stories.
If victim A is murdered, and there is a foreign hair found on the body or at the crime scene... and then that hair is tested and it is found to not belong to Criminal B who was convicted of murder, it does NOT "prove Criminal B was innocent". It merely proves that hair didn't belong to Criminal B. Perhaps it belonged to Innocent Person C, D, or E who were at victim A's house a week prior. Could it be used for reasonable doubt in a new trial? Sure. But when there's a completely reasonable explanation for how that hair wound up there, and the rest of the facts haven't changed, a second conviction is quite likely.
And I'm not saying that every Innocence Project case is like this... but The IP and similar organizations love to tout how they exonerate this person or that person when the reality is that they are often getting new trials granted on technicalities and probably have let many murderers and rapists go free who were rightfully convicted.
I understand the need for The IP and this type of work, but there's really no telling how many "exonerated" prisoners were actually guilty.
And that is the reason that capital punishment should not be allowed.
Though only tangentially related to your post, did you know that nearly 90% of Americans support capital punishment (without a trial, even!), even though almost half of them don't even realize they support it?
See: Number of Americans who supported the killing of Osama Bin Laden.
I watch a ton of true crime shows and and you really do need to know all the details. Even the shows don't tell everything so I go look stuff up and find out what exactly the story was in the end.
It is not enough to just say oh, they're all innocent. Folks seem to forget about the victims. It's bizarre.
The wife likes those, I have to leave the room. They are edited to emotionally lead the viewer towards a desired point of view. And the interrogations are textbook Reid technique, a process that demonstrably leads to false confessions. The one lesson to take away from true crime shows is that if you're ever arrested, the only words to come out of your mouth should be "I invoke my right to stay silent and I want a lawyer present."
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Originally Posted by steveklein
If victim A is murdered, and there is a foreign hair found on the body or at the crime scene... and then that hair is tested and it is found to not belong to Criminal B who was convicted of murder, it does NOT "prove Criminal B was innocent". It merely proves that hair didn't belong to Criminal B. Perhaps it belonged to Innocent Person C, D, or E who were at victim A's house a week prior. Could it be used for reasonable doubt in a new trial? Sure. But when there's a completely reasonable explanation for how that hair wound up there, and the rest of the facts haven't changed, a second conviction is quite likely.
Certainly. On the other hand, if the government's case was based substantially on the hair, and it turns out to be from a visiting dachshund, then government didn't do a very good job at building a case. If the prosecution used the hair as evidence, then taking the hair away weakens the prosecutions case to the same proportion.
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And I'm not saying that every Innocence Project case is like this... but The IP and similar organizations love to tout how they exonerate this person or that person when the reality is that they are often getting new trials granted on technicalities and probably have let many murderers and rapists go free who were rightfully convicted.
I understand the need for The IP and this type of work, but there's really no telling how many "exonerated" prisoners were actually guilty.
That's the uncomfortable bit, but: The IP and the like keep the government on the straight and narrow.
Being a defendant in a capital case puts John Q. Public up against the entire government machinery - a machinery for whom a conviction is a win - and the stakes couldn't be higher. It is crazy important that the government does every single thing by the book. If the government is allowed to skip steps because the defendant is a scumbag who's probably guilty of something, anyway (and many defendants are, no doubt), then we lose the oppositional system of justice. And that's much worse than having a guilty person go free.
This has always been a pet peeve of mine. Since DNA has been made available in the states from 1987 onwards, I could not rightfully convict a person (if I sat on the jury) without the DNA evidence.
I think it should be crucial that it is presented.
We are talking about the killing of another living thing. A human. Why is this not made important enough for the court to recognize it is a living thing that may be innocent? DNA would prove this one way or the other. The fear of the prosecutor being wrong does not bother me in the least. I want to know the truth. And I believe 99% of society does as well. Who are these people? And why have we given them this much power?
Think protection from prosecution to the DA and police is also warranted, but there is a fine line there...this has to be looked into.
How is the DA allowed to make a mistake, and then take a life?
How come we as a society continue to tolerate this?
DNA. DNA. This absoulutely defines whether someone was at the scene of the crime or not. Please, not looking for argument, never am. I know, the true killer may know the victim, etc., but at least grant the DNA to be tested.
If we have the science, why not apply it, for the truth?
*One more thing. We have lawyers coming out of the ying-yang. Why hasn't something been done about this huge, gaping flaw in our legal system?
Last edited by TerraDown; 05-03-2019 at 04:34 PM..
I really don't think that proving that one person was executed wrongly would change anything about the death penalty. There are more than enough people on death row who absolutely deserve to be there.
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While an innocent person being put to death (and its not clear that this is what happened here, though it undoubtedly has occurred in this country's history) is tragic, it is not an argument against the death penalty for me, especially if it can't be shown that such is widespread.
Honestly, this mentality appalls me. How can one justify giving power to the state to kill people on the basis that most of those people, probably, were guilty? Do we really place so much trust in in the corrupt bureaucrats of the justice system that we're comfortable giving them the power of life and death? If one innocent person being killed is not enough to strip the state of that power, how many does it take?
Imagine that, due to a terrible coincidence of circumstance, you were convicted of a crime you didn't commit and sentenced to death. Would you just accept your fate on the basis that the government needs to retain the power to kill bad people, even if sometimes it screws up and innocent people get killed instead? Are you willing to sacrifice your own life on that alter?
I believe that the death penalty should be RARELY sought for ordinary murder and should only be available after meeting a higher standard of proof, namely (at minimum) when two of the following three requirements are met:
1. An uncoerced confession from a lucid individual,
2. Incontrovertible physical evidence,
3. Eyewitness testimony from an individual who is NOT a stranger, as such testimony is often horribly flawed.
Not necessarily arguing, but playing devils advocate here.
1) A confession often is used to get the death penalty taken off the table
2) What is Incontrovertible today.. May not be tomorrow. Think hair analysis, which we're finding in the past was no better than junk science. There's reports now that bite mark analysis, which has been used to convict many people.. Many times it's made up.
3) I agree eyewitness testimony is totally flawed. Almost to the point that i'd say that couldn't be relied upon at all.
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