This part talks about the appeals court, and its general refusal to open up cases, even when there is evidence of innocence.
I haven’t had a chance to read the whole thing yet, but here is how it starts (for those of you who continue to claim there is no real evidence of innocence for any of these cases) :
"By the time the Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas ruled on Cesar Fierro’s request for a new trial in 1996, it was clear his confession had been obtained under disturbing circumstances.
Nearly everyone involved with the case had come to agree that Fierro confessed to the murder of an El Paso taxi driver only after police across the border in Juarez, Mexico, raided his parents’ house, held them captive and threatened to torture his stepfather with electrical current from a generator attached to his genitals.
The prosecutor who put Fierro on Death Row now believes that. So does the local district court judge who reviewed how the confession was obtained. He recommended that Fierro get a new trial.
Even the Court of Criminal Appeals, Texas’ highest criminal court, agreed that Fierro’s rights were violated and police committed perjury.
But the court, in a sharply divided opinion, stopped there. It refused to grant Fierro a new trial."
This one’s about a study showing how flawed many death penalty cases are. Quoting from the article:
"Two-thirds of death penalty cases that were appealed from 1973 through 1995 were successful, report researchers who contend the nation’s capital punishment system is ‘collapsing under the weight of its own mistakes.’
A study of 4,578 appeals during those years showed that most cases ‘are so seriously flawed that they have to be done over again,’ said Columbia University law professor James Liebman, the lead author.
‘It’s not one case, it’s thousands of cases. It’s not one state, it’s almost all of the states,’ Liebman said in an interview. ‘You’re creating a very high risk that some errors are going to get through the process.’"
I think that we have all overlooked the entertainment factor of capital punishment. I mean, I see some murderer making another appeal from prison and my blood just starts to boil. But, I open Time magazine last week and I see the big spread on capital punishment along with pictures of those already executed and those scheduled to die later this month. Man, that is good reading. I have read that article 5 times already and I just laugh a little harder each time. Who really cares what happens to them? String um up, move um out I say. If they must be punished in some way, it is good that we can get a little chuckle out of it. Prison time is just not as dramatic or comedic.
Since when is killing another human being automatically the wrong thing? Throwing the murderer in jail for the rest of his life isn't going to bring back the victim either. Does the idea of ruining someone's life by mistakenly throwing them in prison for 20 years or life make you sleep less at night?
Really? You seem pretty fired up about this “innocent until proven guilty” bit, but seem happy enough to ignore it when talking about Governor Bush. At least with the people on death row, someone actually managed to convince a jury that they had killed someone. Where’s your proof?
Just wanted to comment on this part of the OP: In Illinois, the state’s overall reversal rate is 66%, just under the national average of 68%, suggesting that the Illinois wrongful conviction rate is not extraordinary. This would seem to argue that if a moratorium is justified in Illinois, a national moratorium might be justified as well.
From the LA Times article, Death Penalty Is Overturned in Most Cases, which similarly to some of the other links above, is reporting on the study “A Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases, 1973-95”, by Columbia University law professor James S. Liebman and two associates.
Irrelevant argument ad hominem. I didn’t cite him as an authority; I put that quotation in for its content (Yes! Words have content!) and put his name there for bibliographical reference. For the purposes of argument, you may assume that his opinion is the same as my own, and debate on those grounds, if it please you.
Where is there a public record indicating that someone executed in Texas under George W. Bush’s governorship had actually been innocent of the crime he was executed for?
No divemaster, I’m not calling you a Nazi. But in the end, society not tolerating murder translates into “if you kill then you will be killed.” What is the purpose of doing this?
To save lives by threating potential killers with death.
The Nazi part comes into play because in 1935 not only was Hitler starting off the holocaust. But saying that by invading the Sudenland that he was killing to save the lives of Germans in the area. He would later use the same use the same thought to defend the holocaust. Now I know there was some racal and political motives behind Hitler but Gov.Bush and others use it for their politcal motives. I.E., to appeal to people’s want for revenge.
Yes they can be let out of jail much easier then bringing them back from the dead.
Not coming down on one side or the other here, but I just wanted to clear this up for you, spooje. It’s Illinois that imposed the moritorium, not New Hampshire. And, as we all know, Illinois is not a small, peaceful state.
And Saint Zero: I’ve found that matt_mcl’s quotes, while quite glib and on-topic, rarely add anything substantive to the discussion.
There are exceptions to all rules. I believe that for awful crimes like treason and mass murder that the death penalty is to weak of a punishment.
What I was trying to point out on my last posts was that things can get out of hand quick when you start to use “killing to save lives” to much.
Pardon me if I am misreading you, but you sound like you are in favor of the death penalty. Is this true? If so, are you in favor of it as currently implemented in the US, or is the support based only on general principles?
My (admittedly non-Orthodox–I am slightly right-of-center Conservative) understanding of Jewish law is that the death penalty required quite extraordinary proof to be imposed, and that it was quite rare, during the time of the Sanhedrin (the Jewish high court). I also understood that it could not be imposed at all without the Sanhedrin. Is this correct? If so, should we, as Jews living in a pluralistic democracy, take a position that is consistent with our historical understanding of our own legal/moral system, or are conditions so much different now that we need to allow a lower standard of proof? If my understanding is not correct, please enlighten me.
If I have misunderstood your position, forgive me, but I’d still be interested on an Orthodox perspective on capital punishment in modern times.
Wendell wagner writes:
Huh? How do you come up with that rate? 400 since 1900 comes to 40 a year.
You want to do that math again, WW?
DavidB: You did not answer my hpothetical question in the other thread, so as to not risk “lumping you in” I’ll give you another shot: A man is arrested for the torture, rape, and killing of over 20 small children. He made a videotape of himself commiting these atrocities. He showed the police where the bodies were, and not only admitted he commited the crimes, but bragged about them, and claimed he would repeat them if given a chance. He also ate portions of his victems bodies. Not only is there the confession & videotape, but massive forensic evidence, such as DNA confirms his guilt. There are also several eyewitnesses. Would you execute THIS prisoner?
And i (re)read your articles, DB, and altho they do cast doubt, they show no-one innocent who was executed. Jailhouse informants should only be allowed as a “lead” to get probable cause, they should be otherwise inadmissable.
I don’t recall ever having the first shot, but perhaps you posted it while I was out of town and after I left the thread (as I noted above). Or maybe you posted it earlier and I don’t recall seeing it. In any event, let’s take a look.
Apparently, you didn’t bother to read my posts in that previous thread. Because I posted early on that I would support the death penalty in cases where there was absolutely 100% no doubt. The problem is the question of whether this can ever be. In your hypothetical, it sure looks 100% to me. Alas, the real world is not so clean and neat. I mean, you have the occasional case like Dahmer or the like, but otherwise, by far most of the folks on death row don’t have such clear-cut cases.
Reread? Hmmm. I thought you couldn’t get to the first one before. How, then, had you read it before? Interesting…
And I never said otherwise. I said they had evidence for possible innocence, not that they definitively proved it. But that evidence is enough to point to a problem.
I certainly agree. Of course, that wasn’t the only problem there…
I’m not DavidB, but I’ll answer your question anyway.
No, I wouldn’t. Killing this person is a violation of his fundamental human right, the right to life. I do not think that any government should have the right to decide who lives or dies.
David: I never said I did not read it initially, just when I went BACK to read it, the link no longer worked. I just skimmed it the first time, I will admit.
And those “few” Dahmer* cases are the ones I feel should be executed, along with the even fewer “professional assasin” cases, and also if a “lifer” murderer kills a guard etc while in prison. Out of those 140 or so cases Bush executed, maybe 1-10 might meet MY criteria.
there has been about 3 of those type cases in CA during the last decade, if my memory is correct. One did actually involve a man who kidnapped, tortured, molested & killed children, and taped himself doing the torture. They played a bit of the tapes, and the pleas of the victims& glee of the killers was sickening. “Bayliff, take this inhuman thing out behind the courthouse and shoot it”.
Well, I’m sorry if I seem to be doubting your truthfulness, but the problem is that the link in question didn’t work the way it should have – until you mentioned that it was broken, and I fixed it. It wasn’t a case of a link expiring.
Well, then why are you arguing so much?
Even within yours, a lifer killing a guard – I still wouldn’t make that automatic without knowing the details of the case. You can have just as poor evidence in a case like that as in other cases. Same with professional assassins. Less likely with a Dahmer-like case, but still possible (not for Dahmer himself, mind you). This is the problem I keep pointing to.
Here is a question for you Daniel. I think that really trully sick people should be killed. I don’t apply any sort of “sanctity” to human life. I do not think that the state should carry out those executions. It gives the state way to much power over everyday people. If I’m wrongly framed and thrown in prison for life I can still fight it. If I’m killed, I can’t do much else.
The death penalty is supposed to be, only, for really horrible crimes. Yet you see it being applied to many possibly innocent people. People who aren’t nesecarily bad but made a few mistakes. Do you think that the death penalty could ever trully be applied in the way you state? I don’t think so. You will always have over zealous people clamourin for death when it isn’t really deserved. As such, should we have a systme in place that can put these people to death? A “perfect” system that only puts the trully evil to death could never exist.
But putting him in jail is a violation of another fundamental human right, the right to liberty. Of course since he committed the murder he has forfeited his right to life.
