If you feel we have to be certain of his innocence to try to stop his execution, I wholeheartedly disagree.
I think a reasonable doubt is enough to be uncomfortable with somebody being put to their death.
I reject the argument put forth by Shodan, which roughly seems to be that we should shut the hell up and accept the jury’s verdict as unquestionable gospel, since we didn’t sit on the jury we have no right to make an informed opinion about the case.
As far as his arguments defending constitutional safeguards go, I’d like to remind him that a Free Press and a PUBLIC trial are part of that constitutional safety net put into place.
What I am arguing is that we shouldn’t take the defense case as unquestionable gospel, nor the word of the HBO producers, nor accusations that everyone in the South is a mindless bigot.
We keep hearing only one side of the case, and in some instances that case is grossly over- or mis-stated.
We cannot assume (or perhaps, I am not comfortable assuming) that there is a reasonable doubt, when the prosecution is not allowed to present a case. When the prosecution was allowed to do so, the assumption of innocence was overcome.
And there hasn’t been any new evidence presented. HBO is not new evidence.
** Shodan** I think you’re as guiltly of mistating and grossly over stating as you accuse the others.
This is an imperfect medium (forums) for communication, that combined with passion is a recipe for errors in communication. Errors which Diane and others have admitted to and clarified. Yet here again, you paint them as being shall we say ‘less than forthcoming’.
This isn’t a court room, and very few of us are lawyers, so while your ‘techincal’ requirements of Myers being sworn in or the prosecution not being here to defend their case is fine and good, in this setting it smacks of either a relutance to see beyond the ‘facts’ in evidence or arrogance that we poor emotional laymen, lack the clarity of thought to understand that as long as the rule of law is followed, then the law has done it’s job.
I wonder if you were in charge would the hurricane
Another opinion, don’t want to be accused of showing only one side:Not the hurricane
Shodan, you obviously know dick about this case. Go educate yourself then come back when you have something relevant to offer.
You don’t know enough to even know who the victims are, who the defendants are, or the most simple basic facts of the case, how in the everloving Christ do you have enough knowledge to judge what has been mistated or overstated?
Hint. You don’t. You’re just making yourself look stupid.
Well, thanks for the feedback, Diane, but there is absolutely no physical evidence of that. You must just hate me because I own a black t-shirt.
Your correction as to the names of the defendants is noted and appreciated. Also noted is the fact that similar errors and mistatements by partisans on behalf of the three tended to pass by you unremarked.
Let us all know when the DNA tests get done, or if any new evidence turns up.
I see this argument a lot, but I think it is wrong.
Certainly the jury got to see things that we haven’t seen. But it is equally true that we know many things that the jury did not know or was not allowed to know.
We know the evidence that was used. We know the fiber evidence was irrelevant. Simple logic dictates that if a common fiber found on the victim is similar to a fiber from the defendant’s mother’s robe, and is also similar to a fiber in the defendant’s own home, the fiber is irrelevant. Simple logic dictates that a fiber found on the victim which is so common that almost everyone in the area owns it, and is also found on the shirt of a child relative of one defendant, is irrelevant. Anyone who knows anything about fiber evidence in the first place will place no weight on the fiber evidence, especially given that the prosecution admitted that the tests were inconclusive.
The knife is also irrelevent. The wounds thought to suggest a serrated edge blade turned out to be bite marks. Bite marks which did not match the defendants. Knowing this, there is no reason to believe the knife is the murder weapon, and there is no reason to believe the knife belonged to the defendants.
The necklace, although some people have enjoyed lying about it, did not have blood from any of the victims on it. Furthermore, the prosecution realized this, and did not even present it to the jury. They themselves admitted it was irrelevent.
There was clearly no relevant physical evidence in this case, except for physical evidence that makes it seem impossible for the defendants to have been guilty. But the jury did not know this. They are not experts on fiber evidence. They did not know about the bite marks that didn’t match, or Byers losing his teeth.
But this is the least of the things that we know and the jury didn’t. The prosecution presented witnesses during the trial who stated that they had seen the defendants engaging in satanic devil worshipping rituals. The jury obviously believed these witnesses. But we now know for a fact that these witnesses were lying. They have admitted as much themselves. Their stories themselves are demonstrably false.
The prosecution, based on the false stories of satanic rituals, brought in an “expert” who testified that the crime was a satanic ritual murder. Well, we don’t know for a fact that he is wrong, though we can be fairly sure. But he himself admitted he could have used the opposite facts to call the crime a satanic ritual murder.
But the jury did not know what we know. They believed the stories that the defendants took part in satanic devil worshipping rituals. Stories that are demonstrably false, and that were later admitted to be false by the witnesses.
As I have said before, the appeals process is not a remedy for this. That is why it is highly ignorant to use the failed appeals as justification for believing their guilt. On an appeal the evidence is not weighed again. The witnesses do not all testify again. If the jury could have reached their verdict on what they heard, then the conviction stands. They jury is allowed to believe who they want to. But we now know for a fact that they believed lies.
Perhaps the best legal case for an appeal was Jessie’s confession. An expert on false confessions interviewed Jessie and concluded that it was most definitely a false confession and that Jessie had been coerced by the police. However, the judge refused to allow him to refer to this interview during trial, despite the expert having done the same in other cases. On appeal, the judge’s ruling was questioned, but it was decided that it was not prejudicial because at one point in the trial the expert mentioned in passing that he had interviewed Jessie. Another example of us knowing something the jury was not allowed to hear, and evidence that the judge was biased against the defendant.
Jessie also underwent another polygraph, which he passed. It suggested that police had lied and told him that he failed the first test. In addition, the police had told Jessie that he was lying about the fictitious satanic devil worship gathering. But we now know for a fact that the gathering never happened. The police lied about the polygraph results, telling Jessie that his brain was telling them that he was lying. However, the defense was not allowed to present this to the jury, because of rules against polygraph tests being admissable. Again, we know more than the jury.
The questioning itself took place over twelve hours of isolation. We will never know exactly what happened during this time, because the officers did not record it. This is a law that needs to be changed, in my opinion. They should have been forced to record the questioning. We do know that the only reason Jessie was involved in the case at all is because Vicki had included him in her admittedly made up story of a satanic gathering. Jessie was not a friend of Damien. When he went to the police he thought he was supposed to help them get the killers for a reward. He was not a suspect. However, they bombarded the mentally disabled boy with lies, saying that he had taken part in fictitious satanic gatherings, that their machine told them he knew about the murders. They played him frightening tapes of a boy saying something like “I’m the only one who knows what happened.” They showed him pictures of the victims. Finally they broke his will, and he told them what they wanted to hear. In a question/answer format, they eventually got the answers they wanted, answers which did not fit the facts of the case in many ways but which fit with what the police wanted to hear. After giving a false confession in order to get away from his twelve hour nightmare of police coercion, Jessie was told his story had made him an accomplice. He immediately denied the whole thing, but it was too late.
Yes, isn’t it hilarious when innocent people are executed or imprisoned for life? What a funny joke.
Have you heard of the “poisoning the well” fallacy, Shodan? It occurs when you say something awful about a person, and even if it is completely untrue it has a huge effect on how people see them.
How would you feel if after a murder occurred, I went to the police and told them that I saw you engaging in satanic devil worshipping rituals in that area? Then when you became the prime suspect, testified on the stand that you had once kidnapped me and taken me to a satanic cult gathering?
What if you were then convicted despite lack of evidence? You might think that my false testimony of the satanic rituals hurt you a little, huh?
And what if after the trial I admitted that I made up the whole thing? Wouldn’t you point and shout and say “see, I’m innocent!”
Or would you resign yourself to your fate and say “Well, the jury had the right to believe him. Oh well, execute me.”
Not trying to make light of this sad affair, but I got interested in Dale Griffis & his alleged publishing history. Haven’t yet been able to find any sign that he’s published 4 books. Did find an interesting profile of Griffis which states that, as part of his “qualifications,” he claims to have read The Necronomicon.
A. None of which has been subject to either admission by the court (an important consideration) or cross examination by the prosecution (a vital piece).
B. Again, you miss the point of that objection, though. For example, you make claims about the significance of the physical evidence, the veracity of the confession made to officials, the veracity of a confession made to the HBO folks etc. The jurors, who were the ‘finders of fact’ in the case, heard of evidence, saw folks testifying. IN each case they were required to evaluate the evidence based on what they saw and heard there, so if the person testifying that the defendant was elsewhere was shifting nervously in their seat and giving off all sorts of non verbal cues that they weren’t telling the truth, the transcript would not indicate these things, but the jurors could have seen it. It’s easy to now look at the transcript and believe that you ‘know’ all there was to know about the trial, but I believe that position to be fatally flawed.
I understand completely about ‘if I were the one on death row’ (and frankly I absolutely hate that tactic - you’re basically assuming that I base my moral stance, opinions etc on what practical effect it may have in my personal life), but I do indeed believe in our system.
In this case, I absolutely believe that DNA testing should be done. It wasn’t available at the time, is now, and has the potential for making sure.
I also understand that there are indeed truely innocent people incarcerated, whose trials weren’t even miscarriages of justice, but ended up factually wrong. That’s one of the main reasons I’m against the death penalty.
But. I also believe that there has to be a method to trials. If in every case, folks are allowed to come back 5, 10 years later and pick the transcript apart and come up with different interpretations of evidence presented, there is no justice, either.
No, I didn’t misunderstand. Anything not admitted by the court never happened.
Even though the witness admits that she lied, and even though her made up story is demonstrably false, the jury still gets to believe it.
I get it. That doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it, and it doesn’t mean that I don’t get to protest it.
However, I also have a response on a completely legal basis. The appeal on Jessie’s confession should have succeeded. They made a mistake in denying it.
First, it was a custodial confession. “A custodial confession is presumed involuntary and the burden is on the state to show that the confession was voluntarily made. Noble v. State, 319 Ark. 407, 892 S.W.2d 477 (1995).”
Jessie had already called the police before, thinking that a bum who had asked him to come to a fort to drink beer might be the killer. At that time the police told him that if he helped find the killer he could get a reward.
Jessie’s waiver of rights was obtained without his parent’s permission. This was legal in this case because he was tried as an adult, but combined with the fact that Jessie is mentally disabled this factor should be taken into account.
The police told Jessie he was lying about not participating in the satanic cult activities in Vicki’s made up story. They gave him a polygraph, and lied to him, saying that he had failed. They told him that the machine said that his brain was lying to them.
They showed him pictures of the victims and played him a tape of a boy’s voice saying “nobody knows what happened but me.”
From the appeal decision: “The tape of the boy’s voice gives us pause. This is the type of tactic that comes perilously close to psychological overbearing, and we cannot condone its use.”
As you can see, they came very close to invalidating the confession based on the police tactics. I believe that, considering Jessie’s mental capacities, and the other circumstances of the confession, the confession should indeed have been invalidated.
Also, the interrogation was not recorded. Given all the other circumstances, and given the fact that the burden of proof is on the state to show that the confession was voluntary, this lack of recording should have been a factor in the confession being invalidated.
The trial judge also did not allow the defense to present evidence of a polygraph test suggesting that police lied to Jessie on his first test, although he allowed reference to Jessie failing the first test.
The trial judge also did not allow reference to an interview that an expert on false confessions had with Jessie, which was the entire basis of his certainty that it was a false confession. On appeal, this was said to be non-prejudicial, but I am baffled as to how they came up with that conclusion.
I think it is a clear miscarriage of justice that the confession was allowed to stand. A twelve hour interrogation, conducted in isolation and without recording, with a suggestionable, mentally disabled boy who had thought he was coming with a chance for a reward and had no idea he was a suspect, with no parental permission, with the police telling the boy he was lying about cult activities that are now known for a fact to be untrue, with the police telling him that their machine told them his brain was lying, with psychological tactics such as showing pictures of the bodies and playing a tape saying “nobody knows what happened but me,” which even the appeals court was disturbed by… and after all this, the state has the burden of proof to show the confession was voluntary! This was a bad decision, on a purely legal level. If the law allows for this kind of thing, which I do not believe it does, then the law is wrong.
and the appeals court heard that objection and overruled it on proceedural grounds.
People lie. People lie under oath. People recant. sometimes their recantation is the truth, sometimes it isn’t. You seem to only want to believe people’s statements when they agree w/what you think went on (ex, the confession of the step father in the HBO special, the recantation of this witness, but not the confession of the one person, nor the other persons’ original testimony).
I understand you think it’s a miscarriage of justice. It may in fact be.
However. You need to also understand that:
the confession was ruled admissable. and the jury apparently believed it. I understand there’s reason to be concerned about how the confession was obtained. REmember, you’re preaching to the choir on that one. but you cannot summarily dismiss it 'cause it was obtained under questionable circumstances. (if you don’t believe that I believe the issue of forced confessions, check out my stance RE: the Central Park Jogger case, where I believe that several folks falsely confessed, )
the fact that the confession was obtained under questionable circumstances all by itself does not justify the conclusion that it was false. There needs to be other evidence that proactively demonstrates that it was false (as in the CPJ case, there was only one semen sample identified, and it didn’t belong to any of the folks who were convicted, even tho’ the confessions suggested multiple rapists).
I believe that their best chance rests in the DNA testing, not in the rest of this.
You should read what their testimony was. Not only did they admit that they lied, but their story is literally impossible.
You should also read the appeal decision on the confession. It would have been completely legal to disallow the confession. The burden of proof is on the state to prove that the confession was voluntary. Things like psychological coercion, the age and mental abilities of the defendant, the length and isolation of the interrogation, are all factors in invalidating a confession. It is a judgement call, but I think that they made a legally incorrect decision in allowing the confession, especially considering the fact that it was not recorded.
You should also research the confession itself. It is completely wrong on many of the facts of the case. It reflects what the police believed about the case at the time more than what turned out to be true.
It includes details of Jessie engaging in satanic orgies, killing and eating dogs, the boys skipping school, raping the victims and choking them.
The victims were not raped, they were not choked, they did not skip school. The stories of satanic orgies are based on Vicki’s made up story, which she denied and we now know is literally impossible to have happened.
In short, it is the most obvious false confession I have ever seen, and such is the opinion of many experts.
That a mentally disabled boy, with an IQ of 72 and a mental age of maybe 5, was allowed to be coerced for twelve hours of isolated, unrecorded interrogation, without parent’s permission or a lawyer, into such a blatantly false confession is sickening.
I believe you are wrong about the burden of proof. Once it’s in the appealate court, it’s up to the defense to prove that the confession shouldn’t have been admitted, not the other way around.
RE: statements having impossabilities in them. again. the jurors who heard the original testimony, saw the witnesses testify found certain aspects credible, others not. It’s not unusual for folks to testify truthfully about some stuff, not about others, nor is it unusual or wrong for the jury to believe some parts and not other parts.
I repeat. their best chance (and I believe only chance) is in the DNA testing. attempting to retry the case (either in reality or on line) is not particularly useful for them
And if I answered everything I could lay my hands on, would that be enough?
I’ve read what you presented. I’ve not seen the HBO film. I’ve read what you linked. I’ll admit that I’ve not committed the facts to memory.
I’m not arguing the particular facts of the case, for that’s pretty pointless. What I am suggesting is that, since there’s limited time, limited types of appeal possible, you should try put efforts towards getting the DNA testing.
I’m suggesting that by focusing on inconsistencies in the trial, and evidence isn’t particularly a good tactic. In my experience w/the criminal justice system, it’s not unheard of to have inconsistencies. and once a finding of guilt has been achieved, the burden of proof does indeed shift and the type of argument shifts as well. It’s no longer a case of ‘what about the evidence presented at the trial’, which accounts for much of what’s been posted.
and, please also remember that during the trial both sides had a chance to question the witnesses, review the evidence physically, offer rebuttal. Your presentation here is one sided (as would be expected, since you do in fact believe in your case).
But since it is one sided, and hasn’t the advantage of us being able to examine the physical evidence, view and hear the witnesses testify, so we can have a chance to observe their demeanor etc, nor has the other side had a chance to cross examine your evidence and conclusions, please understand that I find it impossible to simply say “oh, that other stuff must be totally wrong and you must be totally right”. (not claiming truth on either side personally).
IOW - what you seem to be asking of those participating is:
there’s a trial record, where evidence and witnesses were cross examined, seen, evaluated on the spot by both sides
at the end of that trial, a jury found beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendants were guilty.
You are introducing new evidence, comments, evaluations etc. However, none of us is able to examine it personally, have it tested, watch the testimony, nor is the other side afforded the opportunity to attempt to refute it.
Can you not see why it would seem unbalanced to simply agree with you?
For example - you present the step father’s confession as reason to believe that a miscarriage of justice has occured. For all we know (since we’ve not had any testimony of his to look at, cross examination etc), he may not even have been in town that day, may have stated to other people that he’s trying to help the kid, may have a history of mental illness, may have been joking at the time etc etc etc (not claiming any one of these is specifically true, merely that we’ve not had any opportunity to see if there’s something else about it that you’re not aware of either). we don’t know any of this because the only thing we’ve been presented w/ is the fact that he confessed. The prosecution hasn’t had the opportunity to cross examine the evidence, to see if there is indeed nothing more to it.
On further review, you are partially correct about the appealate court. It is not up to either side to prove anything at that point. The appealate court comes to an independant conclusion based on all the circumstances, but in practice it is difficult to get a confession invalidated at that point.
However, my objection still stands, because the defense attempted to have the confession suppressed at trial, and at that point it is very clear that the burden of proof was on the state. That burden was not met, although the very biased judge decided otherwise. The same judge who would not allow the defense’s expert witness on false confessions to refer to his interview with Jessie which was the entire basis for his certainty that it was a false confession.
Again, this is another example of the jury not being allowed to know something that we all know. This happens all the time, and is why your argument that the jury had all the information is untrue.
If you were familiar with Vicki’s story you would know that it was false. Vicki was at the police station on an unrelated matter. She was told of a reward in the murder case, and the police specifically asked her to help them get Damien.Then she came up with a story of being driven by Damien to some kind of satanic devil worshipping gathering. Damien had no driver’s license, the car she described didn’t exist, she could never tell who was at the gathering or show where it was, and there were numerous other holes in the story. She then admitted that she made the story up. But not before the jury was convinced it was dealing with those evil murdering satan worshippers they heard so much about.
I would be protesting this case even if there was absolutely no chance of appeal. There is always the off chance that bringing attention to this horrifying abuse of the justice system will prevent future tragedies, or get some laws changed. Even if not, I still feel obligated to protest against this monstrosity, especially since as a citizen I feel partially responsible for the misdeeds of our legal system. At least I feel that way. I don’t expect you to agree.
