But does it decrease to zero?
That doesn’t necessarily have to be true, does it?
For all we know, those steps could actually just be releasing the “guilty” (meaning the people who did the crimes for which they were convicted) and not serving the innocent, right? Maybe we can assume that they are more beneficial to the innocent than the guilty, but I’m not sure.
That’s fine, but you responded to bup’s statement that 13 of 157 inmates on Illinois’ death row were exonerated at a rate of 8.28%, and your response suggested that error rate doesn’t apply to executed prisoners, because of the appeals process.
But the 8.28% error rate is not derived from counting reversals achieved by “the entire appellate process.” The vast majority of the “entire appellate process” was exercised already for those inmates; the 8.28% error rate was found in those inmates ALREADY THROUGH THEIR APPEALS.
I suppose commutations and pardons don’t apply to that population as rigorously; I grant that.
But my question to you is: if you believe the error rate amongst executed inmates is significantly lower than the error rate among Death Row, not-yet-executed inmates, please explain why. As I’ve shown here, the answer is not appeals, because the 8.28% rate was measured after appeals were exhausted.
Of course not.
That’s not what I said.
Cite?
So, if I understand you’re logic, roughly 82 innocent people have been put to death under the modern death penalty scheme? Can I get a cite to this while you’re at it? We’ve already discussed at least two other cases where “actual innocence” claims were made and I’ve been unconvinced. Have you been hiding the 82 others? And why the focus on statistics anyway? Even one person put to death is too many.
I am not saying it is not possible that an innocent person has been put to death. It is possible, although I’ve never heard of one. Cantu has, at this point in the investigation, the best claim I’ve seen to actual innocence. Far and away more than any other case I’ve looked at. But asserting 82 innocent people have been is, in my opinion, way off base.
I’m not sure I understand.
How would I cite this claim?
Here’s a partial list of exonerated Illinois inmates; the first year after their name is the date of conviction; the second year is the date of exoneration. Your own experience should tell you that the time span alone shows that they were finished with direct and PCR appeals by the time exoneration came. If you doubt that’s true in any given case, of course I’ll provide a detailed cite for that case.
Is that sufficient?
Gary Dotson 1979 1989
Steven Linscott 1982 1992
Ronnie Bullock 1984 1994
Rolando Cruz 1985 1995
Alejandro Hernandez 1985 1995
Richard Johnson 1992 1996
Verneal Jimerson 1985 1996
Kenneth Adams 1979 1996
Willie Rainge 1979 1996
Dennis Williams 1979 1996
Donald Reynolds 1988 1997
Billy Wardell 1988 1997
David A. Gray 1978 1998
John Willis 1993 1999
Ronald Jones 1989 1999
Marcellius Bradford 1988 2001
Calvin Ollins 1988 2001
Larry Ollins 1988 2001
Omar Saunders 1988 2001
Alejandro Dominguez 1990 2002
Paula Gray 1978 2002
Dana Holland 1993 2003
Michael Evans 1977 2003
Paul Terry 1977 2003
Lafonso Rollins 1993 2004
One way would be to show that all pending litigation in the case was completed. I know it puts you in an impossible bind, you can’t show that they were released prior to the completion of all court matters, because they were all released by court, or govenor, order. Hence, they were not put to death. It’s an silly point, I admit, but a point nonetheless. It is the execution of the accused that terminates the judicial review of the case. There are examples where, but for last second work, an innocent man would have been put to death. But they weren’t. And were talking about innocent people executed, not innocent people wrongfully convicted.
Your list helps indicate my point. First, you’ve included people not even sentenced to death. Second, you put people on who were, in fact, found not guilty after retrial.
If you’re debating whether any innocent person has been put to death, the best point would be to show an example of an innocent person who had been put to death, not people who were charged with rape who were later exonerated.
All of which is beside the point. As I said before: Why the focus on statistics anyway? Even one person put to death is too many.
I am not saying it is not possible that an innocent person has been put to death. It is possible, although I’ve never heard of one. Cantu has, at this point in the investigation, the best claim I’ve seen to actual innocence. Far and away more than any other case I’ve looked at. But asserting 82 innocent people have been is, in my opinion, way off base.
Nor am I claiming 82 people have.
But return to my dice analogy for a moment.
If you told me you threw a die five times, and never got a ‘6’, I wouldn’t be surprised.
If you told me you threw a die fifteen times, and never got a ‘6’, I’d be a bit surprised, but I wouldn’t doubt you.
If you told me you threw a die five hundred times, and never got a ‘6’, I wouldn’t believe you… even though it’s mathematically possible.
So, to, in this discussion. Given the number of people that have been executed since 1976, and given the error rates of trials where we’ve been lucky enough to discover new evidence, DNA, something solid that mandated a reversal… I’d be extremely surprised if we had not executed at least one innocent person. I can’t point to the SPECIFIC innocent person; I’m just saying that because we know other results to have been flawed, it boggles the mind to insist that it hasn’t happened. (Which, of course, you’re not doing), but DrDeth did at one point.
I’d be amazed to the point of disbelief to find that none were innocent. I’d be amazed to the point of disbelief to find that 25% were innocent.
Not true, I did not make that claim. It is certainly possible that- unknown to us- one or even a few of those (now) 1000 men were innocent of the crime for which they were convicted. So far, however- this has not yet been proved. In other words- my claim is not that “it hasn’t happened” but that we don’t know and can’t prove that it has happened. I doubt that it has happened, but it is certainly possible.
To use your dice rolling analogy- let’s assume we rolled 1000 dice. The rolls were checked for "sixes’ by at least three dudes. Any six found was taken out and another die rolled. Then, I’d be mildly suprised if there were any sixes left at the end, but hardly shocked.
But you speak of “direct and PCR appeals”- are there not levels of “appeal” after those? Like requesting that the Governor commute the sentance, etc? Aren’t those “part of the system”? In other words, even if the condemned WAS “finished with direct and PCR appeals” aren’t there several other chances his conviction will be reversed or commuted?
".
Perhaps I misunderstand your proposed setup, but of 1000 dice rolls, we can expect 1 out of every 6 rolls to be a six, giving us 166 sixes (rounding down). If each of those is re-rolled, we can expect 27 sixes (again, rounding down and assuming none of the sixes rolled in the first round were missed by your team of 3 people checking for sixes).
27 of 1000 is not very good. I do not think your example supports you the way you think it does.
If the criminal justice system was run by Shirley Jackson, you may have a point. But it’s not. Probable cause hearings, beyond a reasonable doubt, persumption of innocence, jury verdicts, sentencing hearings, judicial rulings, appellate review, habeus, and pardons/commutations have absolutely nothing to do with rolling the dice, no matter how hard you try.
Why does it boggle your mind so much? What is so unbelievable about the system working, especially in death penalty cases? I’m sure you’ve heard the adage that “death is different”. Certainly, it is possible, but our criminal justice system, and justice, is not dictated by odds or likelihoods, but on an individual basis.
I wouldn’t be “amazed” that it happened, but I have yet to find a case where it has. Of course, there are some valid questions (such as the Cantu case, which is, far and away, the best example, for now), but nothing shows it to be true.
I fully agree that it is a persuasive argument that, since it is possible to execute an innoncent man, that we shouldn’t take that chance with the death penalty. I just disagree that it has ever been shown to have actually happened.
Why does it boggle the mind? Because when DNA was first introduced, it exonerated a lot of people on death row - people that were wrongly convicted. We only have that data point - it’s the one time in all of human history we were able to test how well we’d been figuring out who was really guilty, and it was much worse than anybody guessed.
And we’re not talking, there, about maybe they’re not guilty - which is the threshold for letting someone walk - these people were proven innocent way beyond reasonable doubt.
Why go with statistics, you’ve asked a couple of times - look at the individual cases, you say.
There, my friend, you’ve made an impossible task. It would be like me burning a card, and then asking you to prove that it was an ace. Nobody has been allowed to do DNA testing on already executed people.
If you can find 13 out of 157 that were condemned, and think there’s a good chance none of (now) 1,000 was innocent, that boggles the mind.
Commutations and pardons are rare.
Depends on what you mean by “shown,” I guess.
I certainly agree it hasn’t been shown with the same level of confidence that, say, the law of gravity has been shown.
But let’s put it this way: if some all-knowing guy with a time machine or some other way of definitively settling the issue were to come along and say, “What would you bet that it hasn’t happened?” I don’t think I’d risk even a dollar (at even money).
Let me ask you that question: we’ve just invented a time machine, and we’re about to check on the accuracy of all post-1976 executions. Would you risk your house on the proposition that not one was of someone innocent of the crime for which they were executed? Even money.
What is your fascination with odds and betting? Were not talking about random occurences, we’re talking about the criminal justice system. It’s apples and '57 Ford Mustangs.
I have a thoery.
You were (or still are) a prosecutor.
And you’re an honest guy. I’m willing to bet that you never, not even once, prosecuted a case where you had any good faith reason to doubt guilt. And even though you were convinced of guilt, you played fair: turned over timely discovery, didn’t overcharge, scrupulous abour Brady material, etc. And you believed your fellow prosecutors acted the same way.
I was a PD.
My experience with the majority of prosecutors was that they behaved similarly.
BUT NOT ALL. There were a few that cheated. Not major, outright, cheating, but little crap like not turning over all the discovery until multiple requests are made, and maybe even threats to go to the judge. And leaving witnesses for rebuttal even though they should be in your case-in-chief just to avoid disclosing them. And hedging the way you make deals with witnesses so they don’t have to disclose why they’re testifying so favorably for your side, and wilfull blindness about the bona fides of the guy who says he was in lockup and just happened to hear the accused confess to the whole thing, and if only his case will go away, he’ll be glad to say it.
And I think - or I’m guessing - that you never ever saw stuff like that happen, and it’s colored your view of the world.
Now - maybe “death is different.” I admit I never worked on a capital case. Maybe it’s MY view of the world that’s off base.
How’s my theory, counselor? Any chance I’m onto something?
Yes. That’s what I say.
Luckily I don’t think the only way to exonerate someone is by DNA.
Consider your mind boggled. I tend to deal with facts, evidence and proof, not random sampling and odds.
Not in Illinois when the governor is facing indictments its not.
You’re right so far.
As a freshly scrubbed newbie, yes. And I thought police officers never lied too.
You can’t read the paper, have friends who work as criminal defense counsel, or experience the criminal justice system without knowing that stuff happens. I’ve seen it happen. Very rarely, but yes, it happens.
If your point is that prosecution misconduct occurs, you won’t get any argument from me. If your point is that prosecution misconduct occurs and leads to guilty men being sentenced to death… yeah, I could probably go along with that. But if your point is that these things have happened and an innocent man has been put to death… well, there we’d have a problem. I haven’t seen a case where that is true.
I’m not some pie in the sky rookie who can’t even imagine that cops lie, people give false confessions, or judges take bribes. I’ve seen all those happen. What I haven’t seen is a case where an innocent man has been put to death.
And then the 6’s are re-rolled again. And again, for three times. Number’s pretty small now, eh?
Why, yes…it is. Do repeated rounds of anything with a probability < 1 and you’ll eventually have a miniscule number.
<game-show host>
Thanks for playing tonight’s Let’s Pseudo-simulate the Death Penalty! Johnny, tell our contestant what he’s won…
</gsh>
Of course this happens, and we* hope* it’s caught later in the Appeals process. Or before the switch is thrown, anyway- and I think it usually is. Iadmit that sometimes prosecutors will pull a “dirty trick” to convict a man that they are SURE is “guilty as hell”- and usually is.
But how about the shoe on the other foot, Bricker? Do you also agree that a reasonable number of dudes who are (in reality)- guilty as hell- get off because either the evidence is thin, or they “get off on a technicality”? In other words- yes, they really did kill that victim, but for one reason or other (inlcuding Appeals reversing the case, etc) they fail to be convicted in the end? (And, yes, I agree that in our Justice system that it is expected and OK that some dudes who are “guilty as hell” will walk because the evidence against them isn’t enough to overcome “all reasonable doubt”.)
Or some die hard long term criminal who has killed a half-dozen men; but then they arrest him for a man he didn’t kill! That happens too, I’d guess, and it’s hard to say whether it’s morally right or wrong to have a man sit in prison for a crime he didn’t commit- if there are dozens for which he for which he goes un-accused but certainly richly deserves punishment. 
But you know- we really should take this to GD. The PIT is no place for a decent debate on a serious subject.
Umm, I didn’t start the die rolling analogy, dude…