To death penalty advocates
They executed an innocent teenager. You never know, for sure what happened. Our fucking legal system is sure as hell not going to make it come to light 100% of the time. And what they did is irreversible.
Requiring DNA evidence hardly helps things, either. It merely shifts the problem ahead some. You never know exactly where the DNA came from. It can be planted. Just because DNA matches doesn't mean that the DNA was placed there during a murder.
In this case, it was documented that the police fucked with evidence. Why couldn't it happen in other cases? The one standard for applying a wholly irreversible punishment should be absolute certainty. That can never be presented. Thus, there should be no death penalty.
I wonder what this news is doing to the DA. The few quotes in the article certainly don't sound happy.
Additionally, as further evidence that the "get tough" approach to cimre is inneffective, I have spent my whole life listening to politicians spout shit like "three strikes" and advocate more prisions and more aggressive laws, and despite all of it, St. Louis is #3 nationally in violent crime per capita and Kansas City is #26 (scroll to bottom of article). The population figures indicate that neither ranking even takes into accout East STL or KC, Kansas (though, to be fair, it probably doesn't take St. Louis and St. Charles counties into effect, nor Lee's summit and the like). So, all of that 'cracking down on crime' has done a lot of good for Missouri, no?
Requiring DNA evidence hardly helps things, either. It merely shifts the problem ahead some. You never know exactly where the DNA came from. It can be planted. Just because DNA matches doesn't mean that the DNA was placed there during a murder.
In this case, it was documented that the police fucked with evidence. Why couldn't it happen in other cases? The one standard for applying a wholly irreversible punishment should be absolute certainty. That can never be presented. Thus, there should be no death penalty.
I wonder what this news is doing to the DA. The few quotes in the article certainly don't sound happy.
Additionally, as further evidence that the "get tough" approach to cimre is inneffective, I have spent my whole life listening to politicians spout shit like "three strikes" and advocate more prisions and more aggressive laws, and despite all of it, St. Louis is #3 nationally in violent crime per capita and Kansas City is #26 (scroll to bottom of article). The population figures indicate that neither ranking even takes into accout East STL or KC, Kansas (though, to be fair, it probably doesn't take St. Louis and St. Charles counties into effect, nor Lee's summit and the like). So, all of that 'cracking down on crime' has done a lot of good for Missouri, no?
posted by Valatan @ 9:59 PM
3 Comments:
At 06 December, 2005 16:36,
Count Iblis said…
Sleeps with Butterflies: ''the jury should have given him life in prison''.
I don't agree. The jury either thinks that there is resonable doubt or they don't think that. The problem with the US justice system, as I see it, is with the appeals process and also the coruption in the system.
Prosecutors like Mr. Valeska:
http://tinyurl.com/8smz2
would be prosecuted in most Western countries, but in the US he is regarded as a hero.
And once convicted it is difficult to get out of jail:
http://www.patrickcrusade.org/wrongful.htm
''...In addition, in the early 90's, the US Supreme Court ruled in "Texas v Herrera" that "Innocence is not grounds for an appeal."''
In some cases innocent people cannot prove their innocence because DNA evidence has been destroyed:
http://www.truthinjustice.org/campbell.htm
And this is just unbelievable:
http://members.shaw.ca/imaginarycrimes/smith&allen.htm
''Prosecutor Jonathan Rosenbaum told the jury that the children hadn't identified Allen at the line up because they were paralyzed with fear. One mother testified that when her little boy saw Allen, he started crying and ran from the viewing room. The video tape of the lineup, which was not shown to the jury, proves her testimony was false -- her son didn't cry or run from the room, but rather seemed to be having a good time.''
At 08 December, 2005 15:57,
Count Iblis said…
On Discovery Channel I saw a program about Kirstin Lobato's case, see here:
http://www.justice4kirstin.com/story.html
At 24 December, 2005 07:22,
Anonymous said…
The current state of the justice system and the fact that innocence is not grounds for an appeal is a double whammy for those who are wrongfully convicted.
I am a member of the Justice4Kirstin campaign, and have come to know her personally. I know her to be innocent. If it can happen to her, it can happen to anyone who can't afford private counsel. What still remains a question in my mind is how you can even be accused of a crime when the evidence shows that you were 170 miles away.
Not only do these wrongful convictions damage the lives of those convicted, but they waste taxpayer money to investigate, prosecute, and in most cases defend since the accused are usually without the finances necessary to pay for their own defense. All the while, our schools are under-funded.
Doesn't make much sense to me.
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