This is a joke, right? Where in all that bullshit do you find a legitimate credential? He has a doctorate in “mind control” from an unaccredited university? Are you fucking kidding me? Check it out Dude. Columbia Pacific university was a correspondence school which was shut down in 2001 for failing to meet basic standards.
So what other credentials does he have? He’s read a bunch of books on the “occult?” Ooh, I’m soooo impressed. Now what is the “occult” exactly? What can one learn by reading lots of books about it? What expert knowledge is acquired by reading them? And what the fuck is a “member of the occult?”
He gets phone calls asking about Satanism? Who gives a fuck? What the fuck does he know about Satanism? One think he would know if he had any legitimate credentials is that Satanic ritual murder is a fucking urban legend. He would also know that Neo-Paganism, including Wicca, has nothing to do with Satanism. This guy has no “expert” credentials whatever.
So Dianne’s statement is true. Other than a phony “doctoral” degree in a phony subject from a phony university his “expertise” comes solely from reading books in the “occult” section of Barnes & Noble.
Bricker, as an attorney, would you be willing to use this guy as an expert at a trial? (Actually, I don’t know if you’re a trial attorney, so hypothetically, if you were one would you use him?)
Cases like these are why I firmly oppose the death penalty.
If this kid could have afforded a better attorney or this happened in a non southern state, I have little doubt that he wouldn’t be in the situation he is in today.
Well, the title of the OP seems to suggest that we are expected to react to what is purportedly a miscarriage of justice - that the innocent are about to be executed.
I have not seen enough unbiased evidence to agree as strongly as you, or even at all.
As I mentioned, I hear exactly this sort of thing every time some convict is running out of appeals. They are always innocent men, being railroaded by bigotry. They usually come up with a convenient scapegoat on whom they blame the crime (said scapegoat usually dead and conveniently unable to defend himself), and they generally receive reflexive support from those who oppose the death penalty under all circumstances.
It usually works out that they do not claim the death penalty is bad because the convict is innocent. They think the convict is innocent because they think the death penalty is bad.
It seems unlikely to me that, ten years after the fact, the defense lawyers have come up with such conclusive proof of innocence in ways they didn’t think were appropriate at trial, and that they have failed to convince an appelate judge are valid. Unlikely, not impossible.
The presumption of innocence was overcome at trial. The jury was unanimous that no reasonable doubt existed as to their guilt. The appelate courts agreed, and no new evidence seems to be forthcoming.
The jury concluded as it did after hearing both sides of the case. Now we seem only to be given the defense side of things. And yet we are asked to draw conclusions based only on that.
Which is why I asked for some unbiased cites. Comparing what was claimed in the OP vs. the points that Bricker made would indicate that the case is not a clear case of religious bigotry, or that some perfectly innocent bystanders are about to be murdered because they are Wiccan.
If you are asking me to decide based only on one side of the case, I will decline to do so. Which means that the execution should proceed as scheduled.
Shodan, are you really willing to say right now that Echols is guilty beyond all doubt and that you have no qualms about killing him? I want to get you on record now so that when the DNA clears him we can get your response to knowing that you would have killed an innocent man.
The title of the thread is quite accurate. Please show me otherwise.
I will ask you the same questions that have yet to be answered.
Reading what you have read (which looks pretty limited) and regardless of whether or not the trial was the best it could have been, do you feel that these boys were given a fair trial?
Was it fair enough to make you feel secure in the death sentence of Damien?
Are you 100 percent convinced that Damien’s execution will be justified without any doubts of his innocence? If not, do you not feel that steps should be taken to insure that an innocent man is not put to death?
If you do not know enough about the case to answer the questions, then what is stopping you from learning all there is to know? Apathy? A lack of caring? What?
I am willing to say what I have said several times, Diogenes - that I have heard only one side of the case, and am not willing to commit that these three are obviously innocent and that this is a grotesque miscarriage of justice.
If the DNA does not conclusively clear him, are you willing to support his execution?
I am amazed that you make this statement when there have been more than enough links in this thread that would keep you busy for a week if you were to read them all. A pretty good portion of those links include actual court documentation and testimony. In fact, I am pretty certain that www.wm3.org includes every cough, sneeze, or fart muffled in court.
I don’t think you can get any more impartial than that.
Actually, many of the people taking issue with the trial have been doing so for 5-10 years. Only some of us have hopped on the bandwagon recently.
I personally am not opposed to the death penalty, by any stretch of the imagination. However, I don’t believe it should be used whenever there’s any doubt as to someone’s guilt.
As far as laypersons’ summaries go, I can’t imagine why there would be any bias at the CourtTV or Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance websites (all the research I’ve done at those sites in the past has shown to be pretty objective). A DNA test, which the defendant deserves access to, would also be unbiased. I’m not looking for a loophole, just a removal of doubt.
I do take major issue with the fact that a significant portion of the prosecution was based on urban myth.
Unfortunately, someone who lives in a trailer is probably going to have a difficult time affording a good, aggressive defense attorney.
I’m against capital punishment so i don’t support any executions. And “…not conclusively clearing him” is not the standard of evidence for a conviction. If he is conclusively proven guilty then I would support a conviction and a life sentence. Thus far that burden has not been met. The trial was a joke. have you seen those movies? The stepfather pretty much confessed.
I have been involved with the case since 1998. Many more have been involved long before me. Also, how many death row cases are you aware of that has this much public outcry?
How many Ted Bundys and Gacys do you see with major websites and numerous rock bands giving benefit concerts?
Doesn’t that make you think that just maybe there might be some reason there are major differences with this one?
Patience is a virtue - I must not be very virtueeeeeeeuuuuuowweeeeeeusy or something because I am really interested in knowing if my questions will be answered and if so, how.
Say what? People have a life away from the keyboard?
He’s had four books published on the subject. He’s testified as an expert before.
Why are you ignoring those aspects of his qualification?
I was, when I practiced law, a public defender.
Perhaps the confusion here lies in the understanding of what it means to be an “expert” for the purposes of testimony. You seem to think it is a recognition by the court that the person giving the testimony is a nearly-unparalleled leader in his field, or some such. It’s not.
Ordinarily, a witness may only testify to what he or she has personally seen or heard. For example, a witness might say, “I saw Joe pick up a .357 Magnum revolver and fire two shots into the steel door.”
If he didn’t see the shots go through the door, or what happened on the other side, that’s the limit of his testimony.
An expert witness is permitted to draw conclusions from facts in evidence, when the conclusions are such that they would be outside the typical jury’s everyday knowledge. Given the evidence that two shots from a .357 Magnum revolver were fired at a steel door, the expert is permitted to testify that they likely penerated the door.
An expert must not be a world-class authority. He merely must have knowledge, training, or credentials that reasonably allow him to form conclusions based on evidence. Indeed, he need not have any particular academic credentials at all. A plumber might testify as an expert concerning some aspect of plumbing, even if he was entirely self-taught.
NOT ALL EXPERTS AGREE. Indeed, the remedy for an ill-qualified expert is for the opposing side to call their own, better-qualified expert.
Would I use him in a criminal case? Probably not, if I could find someone with better credentials that was also willing to endorse the conclusions my side needed.
But that’s not the question the appeals court asks. You are in essence asking to re-try the case, to re-do decisions that were made at trial. The appeals court does nto re-try a case. Questions of expert witness qualifications are part of a category of evidentiary rulings that are part of the broad discretion of the trial judge. An appeals court does not ask, “Would I have ruled the same way?” Instead, they ask, “Could a reasonable judge have found this man had sufficient experience and academic credentials to permit him to testify as an expert witness?”
The answer is yes.
Now, as an opponent of the death penalty, I would certainly favor stopping the execution. But I strongly object to the misleading tactics and information offered by Diane. She paints one side of the picture, and asks the audience to condemn the process. While I believe the death penalty is a scourge on our society, and not to be countenanced by any decent society, I do not believe the way to reverse it is through this sort of dishonest rhetoric.
Far better to acknowledge the fact that credible evidence DOES exist against the accused boys, and to point out that they were likely convicted because of the lack of a vigorous defense, a defense that could have shown reasonable doubt about that evidence to an impartial jury. Far better to point out that even the slight chance of innocence should be enough to stay executions. Far better to point out that the current system of judging attorney competence for the purposes of appeal is flawed – that an appeals court may dismiss a pivotal issue because is was procedurally defaulted (that is, because the trial lawyer did not properly preserve it for appeal) and IN THE SAME OPINION find that the trial lawyer was competent for Sixth Amendment purposes.
THOSE are the issues that should be argued on behalf of the accused. Not some one-sided lies about the existence of evidence.
You go into your spiel with your legal definition of the definition of a court “expert” but you don’t really SAY anything or maybe you don’t understand what the rest of us have been trying to get across.
When an “expert” sits on the stand and sputters continuously erroneous bullshit information that helped put a man on death row, that bothers me – a lot. It makes me question his qualification as an expert in his field to even sit on a stand let alone open his mouth, especially in a death penalty case.
Does he meet the criteria to testify as a court witness? Yes.
Does that mean society doesn’t have a right to be outraged by erroneous facts he sputtered on the stand that helped to put a man on death row? Nope. Not even.
Strongly object with all your little heart desires, but here’s the thing -
My so called “misleading” tactics and information IMNSHO are not misleading. They are a reflection of my very deep opinion based on more than a couple of years of following this case. As far as I know I am not, nor any other Pit poster, required to play “Point – Counter Point” and submit every possible scenario or view of a topic.
You don’t agree with my opinion or the information I offer? Great. Post your own, but again, I am pretty certain that it is not a requirement for me to show all possible sides, especially when I only believe in the one offered. Strongly.
I absolutely will not acknowledge that credible evidence DOES exist because in my opinion, and that of many, many others, it does not.
Yes, and it was pointed out by not only me but others as well as information linked to.
Point?
I did that. More than once.
If you had been paying attention you would already understand that THAT is one of the main reasons there is so much public outcry regarding Damien’s death sentence. A large population of people feels that there is more than a slight chance of his innocent.
You’re preaching to the choir and making me wonder if you paid any attention to this thread at all or if you were just in the mood to argue. I am pretty sure, even without going back to reread this thread, that this too was stated by me, others, and linked pages.
Jesus H, we all agree! Have agreed, are agreeing, and will agree.
Please, by all means convince me that there is VALID PHYSICAL EVIDENCE that is sufficient to put an accused man to death. Fibers? Not valid in my opinion and that of many others. A knife from a pond? Are you familiar with the circumstances surrounding the discovery and the fact that there is yet another knife that matches the wounds on the children? The second knife was given to the producers of the HBO documentary by Mark Byers as a “gift”. It was bloody. His story changed as to whose blood and how it got there. Just one of the many suspicious circumstances surrounding Byers.
I’m guessing you aren’t going to answer my questions.
Because they’re not qualifications. Anybody can publish a book on anything. Creationists publish books and lecture. Does that make them experts on anything? People publish books expounding all kinds of specious crap. People publish books on UFOs and Bigfoot too. How is that a qualification?
If this guy hjas testified as an expert witness before then that speaks badly for the attorneys who used him. He has no qualifications or any special knowledge.
I know what an expert witness is, Bricker, I don’t think it means that someone has to have elite knowledge in a field. In this case, however, we have a witness who not only has no special knowledge, he doesn’t even really have a field. The “occult” is not a field of study. It’s an academically meaningless word. He does not come close to qualifying as cult expert either. Real cult experts have degrees in sociology or psychology or some other relevant field.
Furthermore, for someone who claims to be an expert on non-traditional religions he shows an appalling lack of knowledge of either Wicca or Satanism. I saw this guy’s testimony in that HBO documentary. I have only a BA in Religious Studies but I could tell immediately that he didn’t know what he was talking about. The fact that he would even use the term “occult” shows that he has no grasp of his own material. The fact that he thinks Satanic ritual murder is a genuine phenomenon seriously undercuts his credibility. The fact that he thinks Wiccans worship Satan absolutely destroys any pretense that he has even the most superficial knowledge of these religions. He was not qualified to draw inferences in this case but he didn’t know a damn thing about the religions in question.
Imagine that someone gets a “doctorate” degree in “Holistic Healing” from a correspondence school. He also read lots of books about “psychic healing” and acupuncture and homeopathy and crystals and pyramid power. He writes a few books himself on these kinds of subjects. He talks to lots of other “alternative” healers and witch doctors. He even “lectures” to suckers about how to heal yourself with herbs and crystals.
Imagine if he is called as a medical expert in a malpractice suit. On the stand he shows a lack of knowledge about basic anatomy. He can’t tell a heart from a kidney when he is shown pictures but he testifies that the doctor disrupted the patient’s “chi” during an operation and that’s what caused a cardiac arrest. The defense does not have the money to hire a real medical expert to rebut the quack.
Now imagine that the jury is composed of naive “New Age” enthusiasts with an intense fear of medical science and doctors. They find the doctor liable based largely on their own ignorance and prejudice.
Was that a fair trial?
If it’s not fair in a civil trial, how could it possibly be fair in capital murder case? There really was no physical evidence in this case. The fibers are a joke. The primary evidence was a highly suspect confession coerced from a mentally challenged teenager after hours of off camera interrogation. If you were a defense attorney then you know damn well the cops can manipulate vulnerable witnesses to the point where they’ll say virtually anything.
Do you really think there’s no reasonable doubt here? Are you 100% confident that Arkansas will be executing a murderer if they kill Damien Echols? I’m not.
Well, I have read some of it, and found that (no offense) it does not necessarily lead to the same conclusions that you hold so strongly.
For instance, you claim that the three are just innocent Wiccans who are persecuted for their faith. The Court TV site, however, states that Damien at least admitted to drinking blood, which does not strike me as an innocent, nature-worshipping religious ritual. Is this conclusive proof of his guilt? No, but it is an indication that perhaps his religious practices might go beyond incantations to the Goddess or Mother Earth.
Your descriptions of the mental states of the defendants (bipolar disorder, mentally subnormal) are presented as proof that their confessions were invalid. To which my response is twofold
The appellate courts found no evidence that this is so, and
My experience is that it is rarely the case that murderers are found among the cream of the intellectual crop. It is almost axiomatic that murderers commit their crimes for reasons that would appear insufficient to the normal person. If this were not the case, murder would be quite common. Instead, what we find is that murderers tend to be people for whom Mensa membership is not a viable option.
It seems to me that the evidence in this case is cumulative, rather than sequential. For example, blood evidence was found in sufficient quantity to establish blood type. The blood type established matched two of the accused, as well as 11% of the population of the world. Is a nine-to-one chance enough to overcome the presumption of innocence? Of course not.
However, a knife consistent with the wounds of the victims was found in the lake behind one suspect’s house. In itself, is that enough to convict? No, certainly not. If you add to it the blood evidence, is it enough? Well, no - probably not. Add to that the fibers found on the victim’s clothing were microscopically similar to those found in two of the accused’s homes. Is that enough? Well - you are starting to get warm, taken all together. The blood was found on a necklace known to have been worn by two of the suspects. Is that enough? The girlfriend of one of the accused testified that he owned a knife similar to the one found in the lake behind his home. Is that enough?
At some point, you are stretching the concept of reasonable doubt beyond its limits. Eventually, you have to conclude that those hoofbeats you hear really are horses, not zebras.
Maybe they all confessed because they were coerced into it. If that is the case, one would expect that there would be no substantiating evidence of their confessions. The fact that a fair amount of substantiating evidence was discovered means that if it really was just coincidental, it is a coincidence of mighty long odds.
Or maybe they really did do it.
And I suspect there we have reached the area where we disagree. Based (certainly) on my support of the death penalty, I am not prepared automatically to reject the idea that the conviction leading to the death sentence was just.
Just so. You (and Diogenes) have been quite upfront in your motivations. You don’t want them executed, regardless of guilt.
I differ. If they are guilty, I want them dead.
Actually, I don’t think this is the case. It is a fight for delay.
Since you oppose the executions, you are pushing for anything that will postpone or eliminate the death penalty. A new trial, with its attendent appeals, can push the execution date back for years. Waiting until 57 days before the expiration date to push for DNA testing is another way to postpone the execution.
Actually, DNA tests are a no-lose proposition. If the state refuses to reopen the case by performing them, this is obvious evidence of bias, corruption, and railroading of the innocent. If they are performed, and clear one or more defendents, you win (and rightly so). If they prove guilt, you can argue that they are invalid (as was done in the Roger Coleman and OJ Simpson cases), and then argue against the death penalty because the defendents are too young, too stupid, too whatever, to be executed. If they are inconclusive, you can argue that they should not be executed because the tests ‘failed to link the defendents to the crime’ or some similar phraseology.
What I expect is the last. DNA tests ten years after the fact, on a blood sample too small to establish more than blood type, are unlikely to produce a smoking gun one way or the other. If the executions proceed, you immediately claim that they were innocent. If the sentence is changed to prison instead of death, you drop all pretense that you think he is innocent, and move on to whoever else is on death row. Using much the same arguements for that case as well.
Well, you may have read some of the information both here and on the site but you obviously didn’t do it well.
Diane has repeatedly pointed out that only Damien is Wiccan–not the other two. And the article you allude to mentions in depth Damien’s many-year search for spiritual fulfillment before finally deciding that Wicca was for him. Now, it does not state when he drank the blood–it could have bee any time over the years.
And no one was persecuted for being Wiccan. Damien was persecuted for being different. To many of the people in that area, Wiccan or anything non-Christian (or non-Protestant for many of them) can be compared to Satanism.
