The reason why it’s unchallenged is that there were enough links provided to determine that what was meant by,“there is no physical evidence” is that there was no credible physical evidence.
Same deal with the outcast angle. I don’t think it’s a bit leap of faith to say that their “black t-shirts” didn’t help them with a jury who may be prone to believe that heavy metal is full of “spells”…
Should Diane been a bit more precise in her language? Sure, but I would hardly consider it an attempt at misdirection, deceit or any other the other things that have been tossed at her.
I don’t think it wrong to say that if the state has an extremely weak case and the only thing that differs the defendant from the jury that convinces him, is the color of skin…that perhaps they were only convicted because of the color of their skin.
Even if there was other ‘evidence’, one must be ‘honest’ enough to weigh that evidence, with the environment in which that evidence is being used.
I did miss the correction, but even so I am disturbed that you posted false information on such an important issue, especially given your tone of authority. You didn’t just say you thought they all confessed, you outright stated that they did.
If all three of the boys had confessed, that would be extremely strong evidence of their guilt. In fact it would be the most important evidence. I am baffled that you would state such a thing without being absolutely sure. Doing so certainly makes it seem that you came in with a pre-rendered judgement, and are not concerned with the facts.
In reality only one mentally disabled boy, with an IQ of 72 and highly suggestionable, after hours of unrecorded questioning, after actual recorded questioning which included police coaching him on his answers, who had been told of a reward, had to be helped by police in a question/answer format, may have thought he was just making up a story, and had no written waiver from his parents, “confessed.” And then denied the story afterwards. Oh, and guess what - even the confession that he did come up with, with help from the police, was still debunked and contained easily falsifiable information. And even though he was offered a reduced sentence to testify, he wouldn’t. Not quite as good as your original idea that they all confessed, it is? But that doesn’t seem to have dimmed your certainty at all.
It may just be the extremity of your mistake, combined with your tone of confidence, that got me angry. Also, it seems that being corrected on such a huge point, a point which in fact was the most compelling in your entire argument, should cause you to rethink your position. It is disconcerting to see that being wrong on such a grand scale has not caused you to miss a beat.
You specifically said that people were making things up. How is that not calling them a liar?
Look, your standards have to be pretty low to call anything in this case “physical evidence.” Even the prosecutor’s own witness testified that the tests were inconclusive! But I’ll go over all the “evidence” you listed, and you tell me how conclusive it is.
The fibers that were matched were also found in the victim’s own home! Perhaps I should be more clear - a certain fiber is found on the victim (Michael). That fiber is also found on one of the defendant’s mother’s robes (not even his own clothes). But the same fiber is also found in Michael’s own home. It’s not only a very common fiber, but the victim has it in his own house! It is absurd to call that physical evidence of anything at all. My mind is doing backflips trying to rationalize how you can make anything relevant to the case out of the fibers.
So was there any real physical evidence? No. What about the knife? The knife was found in a lake which was often used for fishing and dumping old junk. Only a small portion was searched - how many more “possible murder weapons” would have been found?
Furthermore, there is no evidence that the knife belonged to any of the defendants. There is not even any reason to think it was the murder weapon. The prosecution freely admitted that Byers’ knife could have been the weapon. Finally, there is new evidence that the wounds thought to have been caused by the knife were actually bite marks! Bite marks that don’t match the defendants! How can you not care about that? How can you say the knife, like the fibers, has ANY relevance at all? How can you say it doesn’t matter that the bite marks didn’t match the defendants? What about Byers “losing” his teeth?
The good Dr. Griffis? All he did was make ridiculous statements about satanic occult killings. He admitted that he could have come up with ways to tie the crime to satanic occult killings, even if the evidence had been the opposite of what it was. And he was likely the most important part of the prosecution. Get people scared about an urban legend like satanic occult killings, and they may convict with no evidence. I’ve been on a jury, and I know just how fallible they are.
The necklace? The blood on the necklace could only be discovered to be a common blood type, shared by both one of the defendants and one of the victims. It is completely ridiculous to conclude it had both their blood, as they have the same blood type. The prosecution did not even present this useless information to the jury.
So, there is all your vaunted evidence. Each one completely debunked. So no, there was no relevent physical evidence in this case. And the motive was completely inane. Dr. Griffis himself admitted he could have tied even the opposite conditions into a so called satanic occult ritual. So what is left? On what do you base your certainty that they are guilty? Anything? Or are you as gullible as the jury, and you think being or hanging around with a wicca, and wearing black, are sure signs that you are a murderer?
The ignorant, hillbilly southern thing has gone on far too long. Drop it out of your argument. This doesn’t help your cause, and certainly doesn’t endear you to anyone in the South that might be willing to look at the evidence objectively.
I know my post may be hard to understand, as I didn’t get any book learnin’ pas’ the third grade.
Maybe I should also explain to Shodan how it is that the boys lost their appeals.
The reason is, that at the appeals evidence is judged very differently.
At the trial, evidence has go along with known facts in the case.
But at appeal, the evidence only has to be judged to be sufficient. At the appeal they don’t sit through the case.
I have just explained how all of the “evidence” was debunked, and most of it was found to be completely irrelevant. If you disagree, feel free to explain why.
However, let’s take the fibers for example. Now, we know that the fibers found on the victim were found on the defendant’s mother’s robe. And we also know the same fibers were found in the victim’s own house, making them completely irrelevent.
But at the appeal, they look at the fiber evidence on its own. They ask whether the fiber evidence could help sway a jury. Could it? Yes. If the fiber was found on the victim, and in the defendant’s house, then it could sway them. They do not disregard the evidence because the fiber was also in the victim’s own home, because evidence is not judged that way on appeal.
Similar reasoning makes all the evidence that was irrelevant at trial into relevant evidence. Thus the appeal is lost.
In one breath the defense (by that, I mean on this board) is arguing that the knife the prosecuters entered into evidence isn’t the knife that was used. You suggest that the knife used is actually the knife belonging to the stepfather Byers.
In this post, Nightime now says the knife wounds may not be from a knife at all, they could be teeth marks.
IMO, THAT is a far stretch. Is there a claim that the ME was unsure?
I do not claim to know a lot about the case. I had never heard of the WM3 before I started coming to this message board. I feel sympathy for the boys if they are innocent. But I’m not convinced that they are innocent or guilty. I haven’t read a lot about the case, and on the site, the original transcripts appear to be missing.
I tried to go rent the movies, but one store I checked lost their copies and the other store had checked them out. I will check back later this week.
I can see that this case is very emotional for the boys supporters. However, it seems that if anyone refutes even the smallest claim that has been made here, they are treated as if they are the enemy. I don’t think that Bricker deserved a lot of the comments made, particularly by Diane regarding the fact that he is an attorney.
I never said Byers’ knife was used. I just said that the prosecution admitted it could have been.
The knife found in the lake was not proven to be the murder weapon.
It was not proven to belong to any of the defendants, and in fact had marked differences to the knife supposedly owned by the defendants.
The only reason it was suspected of being the murder weapon was that its serrated edge was thought to be consistent with certain wounds on the victims.
However, it was later discovered that those particular wounds thought to be a result of the serrated edge were actually bite wounds. Bite wounds that did not match the defendants.
In what way? The authorities had in their custody the only ones they believed to be capable of the crime, any evidence that pointed in a different direction was evidently ignored. The crime scene contained a shoe print that didn’t match any of the suspects’ shoes, I wonder what other evidence was dismissed.
I firmly believe the south has not progressed at the same level as the rest our nation’s society. If it weren’t for the Supreme Court stepping in, you’d still be putting queers in jail and segregating your schools.
If you want to show me how fucking progressive you are, prove it.
The remedy for failing to advise a suspect of his Miranda rights, and getting a waiver of them before interrogation, is the exclusion of statements made at trial.
If Jessie had been tried as a juvenile, the police would have been unable to use his statements against him. But they took the chance that, even though technically a juvenile, he was so close to age 18 that a judge would find sufficient cause to try him as an adult. There is nothing remotely shady about that. It’s done all over the country, all the time.
Now, as I said, you can certainly make a case that this is an unwise rule - that age 18 should serve as an absolute bright-line barrier betwene juvenile and adult proceedings. But you cannot pretend that something illegal or unethical was done by failing to secure a Miranda waiver from Jessie’s parents.
My point is, and has always been, not to defend the verdict. Again, my point is that Diane shaded the story when she told it. An ethical reporter would have acknowledged both sides and argued against the side she felt was in the wrong. Diane grossly distorted one side to gain sympathy for the other.
Interestingly enough, the cases here were appealed to the US Supreme Court, which denied cert. It, in other words, refused to hear them, letting the decision of Redneck Central stand.
What shall we conclude from that? Clearly, the US Supreme Court is not peopled with the same smattering of ignorant rednecks that Arkansas evidently is – you yourself acknowledge it forced the south into line.
I’ll tell you that I began this thread with a great deal of sympathy for these three boys. It’s fortunate that I won’t impute the idiocy of their defenders to their cause; otherwise I might be in much less generous a mood regarding their cases.
Bricker, I would actually welcome you to tell me what relevant evidence there was to convict the boys in this case. In a previous post of mine, I debunked all the evidence that Shodan had talked about. Given how much the boys have already suffered, I think it would be better if they turned out to be guilty.
But I am unable to find any evidence that is even credible and relevant, let alone conclusive. Do you know of any?
Also, as a lawyer you know that evidence is judged differently on appeal than it is during the trial. During the trial evidence has to go along with actual facts of the case.
But during an appeal, evidence need only be sufficient enough for a jury to have reached a verdict based on it. An appeal is not a new trial. They don’t sit through the whole thing again.
In an appeal they do not know the details of the case that make the evidence irrelevant and not credible.
You asked questions about the evidence, and you offered assertions that are not part of the record of this case. You allege that the fiber evidence is faulty, for example, by saying:
Where in the record was this evidence presented?
The role of the jury at trial was to weigh the evidence. You are asking me to substiture my judgement for the judgement of the jury, despite the fact that I can’t hear the witnesses testify, and that you are offering facts now which were not in evidence at the trial, and which are not subject to cross-examination by the prosecution. That’s not the way evidence in a criminal trial gets considered.
It’s the role of the JURY to weigh evidence. The jury is free to disbelieve some evidence and believe other evidence. You’re asking me to accept your evidence now, without any challenge or corss-examination, and you’re asking me to replace the jury with my own judgement.
That’s not how it works.
As you point out, the appellate court merely has to find sufficient support in the record for the jury’s verdict. They do not re-weigh the evidence. But that’s because the JURY does that.
You don’t like the decision the jury made. But it wasn’t your job to make it. It was the jury’s job.
And to answer your first question, I have listed sufficient evidence to support the jury’s verdict. If you wish to debate it, that’s one thing. But you cannot say as a matter of law that the evidence is incredible or insufficient.
The problem in this case is not Southern hicks, black T-shirts, Wicca prejudice, coercive cops, or even Diane. The problem is that Strickland needs another look.
It is utterly perplexing that a key issue may be procedurally defaulted by a lawyer that who is, in the very next section of the opinion, found competent for Sixth Amendment purposes.
The way Strickland is being interpreted is permtting abysmal representation to stand as sufficient. It needs a second look.
Okay, but how long or what’s the likelyhood of that happening?
It seems to me the only way for justice to happen, is to point out to everyday people, the black t-shirts, the wicca, the southern hicks and get some grass roots anger going.
Average people can see and understand “coercive cops”, I’m not so sure about Strickland.
I don’t know if it will do any good since I’m in a different state on the other side of the country, but maybe I should write to the arkansas governor about this.
Yes, Bricker, I am well aware that much of what I said was not presented by the defense during the trial.
However, that is not to say that it is not on record. There are indeed records of everything that I said. The record of the case? No. But, in fact, is that not the greatest evidence of all that they did not receive a fair trial?
Do you even dispute any of what I said?
Assuming that what I said was true, do you believe the boys should have been convicted?
Actually, some of what I said was admitted by the prosecutor’s own witnesses.
The prosecution admitted that Byers’ knife could just as well have been the murder weapon.
It is now on record that in an expert’s opinion the specific wounds thought to have been caused by the serrated edge, were actually bite wounds. The bite marks did not match the boys. Though possibly unrelated, Byers lost his teeth. Now, I concede this was not brought up by the defense during trial. However, going beyond that for a second, what do you think about it?
Dr. Griffis himself admitted that he could have tied the crime to “satanic occult ritual sacrifice” even if the evidence had been the opposite of what it was. This is not surprising, as his evidence consisted of such gems as explaining that three boys were killed, and three is an important number to the widespread satanic ritual murderers. :rolleyes: Do you personally give any weight to Dr. Griffis?
The blood evidence from the necklace, even you must admit is not relevant. It was not even presented to the jury. The blood type was very common, and since it was the same blood type of one of the defendants there is no reason to believe the victim’s blood was there too.
The fibers? Again I must concede that the defense did a spectacularly poor job during trial (and shouldn’t there be a remedy for spectacularly poor defenses?) but do you deny that the fiber was an extremely common fiber, and was indeed found in the victim’s own house? Are you aware that even the prosecutor’s own witness found the fiber tests inconclusive in the first place? Do you personally give any weight to the fiber evidence?
Do you deny that the confession of a suggestionable, mentally disabled boy with an IQ of 72, obtained in a largely unrecorded question/answer format questioning, with obvious coaching on tape, and an expert opinion that it was a false confession, is highly suspect? Does it matter to you that the confession was in fact demonstrably false in many ways, including the fact that those involved could not possibly have been where they were placed? That the boy denied the confession, and refused to testify despite prospects of a reduced sentence?
Honestly, I was hoping you would have some evidence I was unaware of. I was hoping there was some reason for you to believe they are guilty.
But it seems all you are doing is denying that anything not in the record of the trial even exists. As a lawyer, you surely know juries are not infallible. I know, because I was on a jury. I was against everyone else on the jury, and I turned out to be right. The defendant was aquitted in a new trial.
I pointed that out because certain people in this thread have argued that, even if the original jury was incompetent, the boys would have won their appeal if they had a case.
You are now agreeing with me that appeals are not new trials. They don’t sit through the entire case again. They don’t reweigh the evidence. They just judge whether there was sufficient evidence to convict.
In other words, if the original jury was incompetent, and believed obviously incredible and irrelevant “evidence”, the appeal is not the remedy certain people think it is.
You’re right. As a matter of law, the evidence is sufficient. I never claimed that it wasn’t.
However, if you had to defend your position that these kids are guilty, and should be executed, could you provide any evidence that you personally believed?
Is there any evidence that you believe is both credible and relevant? Anything that you believe is even close to conclusive?
Of course, I expect you will say that there is not, but that as you were not on the jury it is irrelevent that you cannot provide any evidence of their guilt, other than the fact that a jury convicted them. A legally correct statement. But do you understand why some people are not satisfied with a merely legally correct statement, and would like punishments to be based on actually commiting a crime, rather than only being convicted for one?
Yes, there are ignorant people in the South. There are “bible-thumpers”, there are racists, bigots and all other sorts of unsavory folk.
Guess what you have there in Oregon? “Bible-Thumpers”, racists, bigots and all other sorts of unsavory folk. Oregonians are not noted for being particularly “progressive” to my knowledge. (I do have this on authority from a fellow Oregonian, whose opinion means no more or less than yours.)
When I was in the NorthWest, I found YOUR schools to be woefully behind that of the ones my children have attended in Georgia AND Texas, and my children to be much more educated than the children there. When I was in the NW, I met a guy that didn’t believe that GA was one of the first 13 colonies, or that GA was on the East Coast. Should I base my opinion of you on him?
And don’t bother writing to the Arkansas governer…after all, he probably can’t read it anyway, right?
Nightime, so DNA testing is being done on what? The knife, the necklace, something else? And if the knives are no longer an issue, the knive wounds being teeth marks, why are they being brought up?
i think some of those questioning the boy’s innocence, used the knife to show a link to one of the boys. this was based on ‘evidence’ that one of the boys owned a knife ‘similar’ enough to have made the wounds. If the wounds are now bite marks, then another piece of ‘evidence’ falls away,