Have you never heard of indulgences?
Yes, I have heard of indulgences. The indulgence is granted by Catholic church after the sinner has confessed and received absolution.
That is silly. A jury found him innocent, he didn’t do it.
White male, 51.
Juries don’t find a defendant “innocent” or declare that “he didn’t do it.” They find the defendant “not guilty”, i.e., the prosecution did not prove it past the degree required.
http://www.azcentral.com/ent/celeb/articles/0930ojpoll0930-CP.html
What do you know? Blacks and whites are divided on this issue.
I’m shocked.
If it were a crime to be a Putz, then the electric chair would never cool off.
Oh yeah,
White female human. 40. Guilty.
White male, 58, guilty as hell.
I watched a special on the Atlanta child murders on Sunday. If you aren’t familiar, a serial killer went on a murder rampage of poor black kids from '79-81. It was on the evening news every night for awhile but didn’t saturate the airwaves as thoroughly as you might imagine, simply because CNN wasn’t around then. Anyway, a total of 29 children and young men were murdered over a period of 2 years. It was staggering both in the killer’s choice of victims and his arrogance – he’d snatch these kids right in broad daylight…and no one saw anything.
As you can well imagine, the tension in Atlanta was unbelievably high during this time, with the police force and FBI getting increasing pressure to catch the killer and the black community increasingly outraged that their kids were being targeted and utterly CONVINCED that the police weren’t giving it their full effort, despite the fact that both the mayor and the police chief were black men. One woman was quote, “The police have no trouble doing drug busts, but they can’t find a child murderer.”
They finally got a break in the case when FBI agents, staking out an area bridge (because the killer was dumping his latter victims into the river to wash away evidence) got lucky. They caught a man throwing something over the side of the bridge. They followed and stopped the driver, Wayne Williams, and got an id. When a young man’s body surfaced later in the same river, they were able to arrest him for that man’s murder. Through forensics, they were able to connect him to two of the victims. He was ultimately tried and sentenced to 2 consecutive life sentences. Williams is believed to be responsible for most, (though some believe, not all), of the murders though they don’t feel they have sufficient evidence to get a conviction.
Interviewing the families of the victims 25 years later, I was struck by their lingering suspicion that the police didn’t get the right man. Part of the reason is that the suspect was a black man, which absolutely rubbed them the wrong way. Almost a “how convenient” kind of mentality. And it boggles my mind how they could think that way. This community was experiencing 2 murders a WEEK at times. After Williams was arrested, suddenly…nothing. If that wasn’t enough to convince them that the right guy was caught, I don’t believe any amount of forensic evidence will work. They have an unshakeable distrust and suspicion of the police department, and government, that I have a hard time comprehending it.
I don’t think we middle class folks have any way of understanding what it’s like to be black and poor. Whether it’s justified or not, poor blacks seem to think that cops are simply out to harrass them and that unless they put pressure on the officials, nobody would care that their children were being murdered. If Williams had met a jury of these people, I honestly wonder if he would have been convicted. He was black, he was charming and he was one of them.
Not only was CNN around then, I remember following the investigation, the arrest, and the trial on CNN.
John Douglas’s book “Mind Hunter” describes how they got Williams on the cross examination. The attorney consulted Douglas, who said to wear Williams down with questioning, then ask him a pertinent question. Afther the defense attorney had presented a case of Williams being a soft-spoken gentle soul, the prosecutor started. He worn Williams down with a bunch of quetions, then asked “What was it liked when you killed those boys? Did you panic?” Williams gave a weak “no” and then he lost it, screaming “You are trying to make me fit that killer’s profile, and I am not going to take it.” The defense was jumping up with objections and the jurors were just sitting there with their mouths open at seeing this violent side of Williams.
The jury later told the defense attorney it was the turning point of the trial to see the violence Williams was capable of.
Interesting. Was it a 24/7 thing? Perhaps it was simply that cable wasn’t prolific back then. We didn’t get it until 1983 and were one of the first in the neighborhood to have it. That explains my immense, but fleeting, popularity.