# Miscarriage of Justice Omnibus Thread **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 4, 2021, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miscarriage-of-justice-omnibus-thread/943643 "2021-06-04T20:52:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 19
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2024, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miscarriage-of-justice-omnibus-thread/943643/362 "2024-09-21T16:56:36Z")
> **[South Carolina carries out first execution in 13 years](https://apnews.com/video/south-carolina-crime-capital-punishment-legal-proceedings-prisons-e26ed86722e34aa8915289efdbce7e70)** > > South Carolina has put inmate Freddie Owens to death in the state’s first execution in more than a decade. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2024, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miscarriage-of-justice-omnibus-thread/943643/363 "2024-09-26T13:31:21Z")
> **[In rare retrial, Shizuoka court rules ex-boxer not guilty of 1966 murders](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2024/09/26/japan/crime-legal/hakamata-retrial-ruling/)** > > Iwao Hakamata, the world’s longest-serving death row prisoner, has maintained his innocence for decades. > Presiding Judge Koshi Kunii said that key evidence in Hakamata’s conviction — five pieces of clothing with bloodstains — had, in fact, been fabricated by police. > > Those pieces of clothing, found 14 months after the crime in a barrel at the miso factory where Hakamata worked, had been the key focus of the case. > > During Hakamata’s retrial, prosecutors had described the bloodstains on the clothing as dark red, but the defense team argued that the items of clothing were planted as they would have been discolored if they had been in a miso barrel for more than a year. In addition to the fabricated evidence, police coerced a confession from Hakamata. A [CNN article](https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/25/asia/worlds-longest-death-row-prisoner-japan-intl-hnk/index.html) says, ‘After a DNA test on blood found on the trousers revealed no match to Hakamata or the victims, the Shizuoka District Court ordered a retrial in 2014.’ So at long last, an innocent man has been exonerated. But due to this egregious miscarriage of justice, he’s spent half a century locked up and he apparently has [Ganser syndrome](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29151087/). In Japan, inmates are informed of their execution on the morning of their execution. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2024, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miscarriage-of-justice-omnibus-thread/943643/364 "2024-09-27T01:56:10Z")
Japan’s criminal justice system has a famously high conviction rate. [Wiki has this to say about that](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Japan): > One of the main features of the Japanese criminal justice system well known in the rest of the world is its extremely high [conviction rate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conviction_rate), which exceeds 99%.[[17]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Japan#cite_note-17) Some in the common law countries argue that this is to do with the elimination of the [jury system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_system) in 1943; however, trials by jury were rarely held as the accused had to give up the right to appeal. Lobbying by human rights groups and the Japan Federation of Bar Associations resulted in the passing of a judicial reform bill in May 2004, which introduced a lay-judge system in 2009, which is often confused with the jury system in common law countries.[[18]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Japan#cite_note-18) > > Japan’s criminal justice system has been dubbed “[hostage justice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostage_justice)” ([Japanese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_language): [人質](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%BA%BA%E8%B3%AA#Japanese)[司法](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%8F%B8%E6%B3%95#Japanese), _Hitojichi shihō_) by critics, due to cases of extended detention (up to 23 days) and forced questioning of detainees without a lawyer and of violations of the right to remain silent. In order to meet the high confession rate, Japan’s justice system can cause more false confessions and wrongful convictions. Detention is not only used to ensure that suspects appear in court. Many legal procedures also violate the [Constitution of Japan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Japan) due to the right of physical freedom, the right to remain silent, and the [right to a fair trial](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_a_fair_trial).[[19]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Japan#cite_note-19) Critics say prolonged detention and interrogations to force confessions violates the prohibition of torture. Some allege that international [human rights](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights) are violated because there is no presumption of innocence, [psychological torture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_torture) is not prevented, and there are cases without access to counsel during interrogations.[[20]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Japan#cite_note-20) The latest criminal justice reforms, implemented in the 2000s, were largely unsuccessful in solving these flaws.[[21]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Japan#cite_note-hrw-hostage-justice-21) _I left in the footnotes and other links for those who wish to go down that particular rabbit-hole._ ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2024, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miscarriage-of-justice-omnibus-thread/943643/365 "2024-09-29T12:51:46Z")
In the U.S. lots of places have very high conviction rates simply by the prosecuting attorney only taking slam-dunk cases to trial. ========================= A case which hinges on the testimony of jail-house informants: > **[Appeals stretch 4 decades for a prisoner convicted on little police evidence](https://apnews.com/article/life-sentence-informants-szarewicz-pennsylvania-conviction-police-89edc6dbe87e33c0f723e8fe70e8a282)** > > A Pennsylvania man who has served 43 years of a life sentence for murder is still pursuing appeals. Steve Szarewicz insists he didn't do it, but so far his claim hasn't persuaded the courts. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2024, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miscarriage-of-justice-omnibus-thread/943643/366 "2024-10-24T23:48:57Z")
> **[A Detroit murder conviction is overturned 22 years later because of police...](https://apnews.com/article/detroit-rogue-cop-conviction-overturned-120be6b55c7994346fd82d24acf80e8f)** > > A Michigan man has been released from prison after 22 years after Detroit-area prosecutors acknowledged that his murder conviction was tainted by the key testimony of a rogue police officer. > The jury also heard from Detroit police Sgt. Walter Bates, who denied coercing the witness. The jury apparently believed the officer and declared Hill guilty. > > But Worthy noted that jurors and Hill’s lawyer didn’t know that Bates was suspended at the time of his testimony. **[Sgt.] Bates was later convicted in federal court of organizing bank robberies.** Surely just because a police officer has a spare-time gig is no reason to doubt his testimony in criminal cases? ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2024, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miscarriage-of-justice-omnibus-thread/943643/367 "2024-10-25T14:57:51Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > Surely just because a police officer has a spare-time gig is no reason to doubt his testimony in criminal cases? I think when you have a side job as a bank robber that’s called goonlighting. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2024, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miscarriage-of-justice-omnibus-thread/943643/368 "2024-12-03T23:38:37Z")
> **[Freedom is permanent for Missourian described as the longest-held wrongly...](https://apnews.com/article/sandra-hemme-conviction-overturned-f35a0193a449d6a6fe047016c4399f7b)** > > Years of legal wrangling have come to an end for a woman who spent 43 years behind bars for a killing that her attorneys argue was committed by a discredited police officer. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2024, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miscarriage-of-justice-omnibus-thread/943643/369 "2024-12-14T02:37:25Z")
> **[US jury finds Vegas police fabricated evidence in 2001 killing, awards $34M...](https://apnews.com/article/kristin-lobato-exonerated-nevada-jury-award-4b3511affb0a50a24806b5cf6791f585)** > > A federal jury in Las Vegas has awarded more than $34 million to a woman who served more than 15 years in prison for a 2001 killing she did not commit. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2024, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miscarriage-of-justice-omnibus-thread/943643/370 "2024-12-17T21:11:24Z")
I recall that story from back in the day. It was pretty hinky to be sure. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2025, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miscarriage-of-justice-omnibus-thread/943643/371 "2025-01-25T07:11:37Z")
> **[Connecticut to award $5.9 million to family of wrongfully imprisoned disabled...](https://apnews.com/article/murder-wrongful-conviction-connecticut-richard-lapointe-396b7ef25cb3228bfb95f4d9770e787b)** > > Connecticut is set to award $5.9 million to the family of a disabled man who served a quarter century in prison before his murder conviction was overturned. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2025, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miscarriage-of-justice-omnibus-thread/943643/372 "2025-05-02T13:36:27Z")
> **[A Mississippi man spent 940 days in jail waiting for a trial that never came](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mississippi-man-spent-940-days-jail-waiting-trial-never-came-rcna202778)** > > Sinatra Jordan was accused of firing at police officers and leading them on a chase through the streets of Jackson. Then the officers were arrested. Terrible. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2025, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miscarriage-of-justice-omnibus-thread/943643/373 "2025-06-13T20:06:07Z")
> In 2015, a judge sentenced the husband and father to 15 years in prison for conspiring to sell an opioid combination pain-relief medication – a schedule III controlled substance. But he spent eight years in jail before anyone realized the maximum sentence for his crime by law was five years. In May, the Mississippi Court of Appeals recognized that Taylor was serving a sentence 10 years longer than the legal maximum, but refused to order his release despite making note of the mistake, arguing that the issue was raised too late. > > It’s only after he challenged his sentence in 2023, demanding eligibility for parole, that the problem surfaced. The Choctaw County Circuit Court denied Taylor’s motion for post-conviction relief, because he filed it past the three-year deadline of his conviction. > **[Marcus Taylor should have been freed years ago. Mississippi courts refuse to...](https://apnews.com/us-news/mississippi-marcus-taylor-general-news-david-neil-mccarty-pain-management-d6cc189aabab61f1312399ef130db732)** > > Marcus Taylor has been incarcerated for 10 years, serving a sentence that should have ended five years ago. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2025, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miscarriage-of-justice-omnibus-thread/943643/374 "2025-07-17T01:52:38Z")
> In its latest appeal filed in February, Roberson’s legal team said that based on new evidence “no rational juror would find Roberson guilty of capital murder; and unreliable and outdated scientific and medical evidence was material to his conviction.” The **new evidence includes statements from pathologists that state the girl’s death was not a homicide** and who question the reliability of conclusions by the medical examiner on the cause of death. > **[New execution date set for Texas man Robert Roberson in shaken baby syndrome...](https://apnews.com/article/texas-execution-date-roberson-shaken-baby-bd9becf4bd5d76ff69d6f15daa4b3f2f)** > > A judge has set a new execution date for a Texas man who had been set last year to become the first person in the U.S. to be put to death for a murder conviction tied to a diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome. His two year old daughter died in 2002, 23 years ago. I wonder if there is evidence of previous situations where he was violent to his daughter? ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2025, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miscarriage-of-justice-omnibus-thread/943643/375 "2025-07-22T04:02:38Z")
Cops and lawyers and expert witnesses are constitutionally incapable of admitting that they are wrong, ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2025, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miscarriage-of-justice-omnibus-thread/943643/376 "2025-08-12T21:14:39Z")
> **[Minnesota prosecutor seeks to overturn man's 1998 murder conviction after a...](https://apnews.com/article/minnesota-mary-moriary-bryan-hooper-adac77573a17d73871766d02cda92e04)** > > A Minnesota prosecutor is seeking the release of a man in prison for 27 years for murder after a key witness recanted her testimony and confessed to the crime. The star witness for the prosecution was actually the killer. Strange. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2025, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miscarriage-of-justice-omnibus-thread/943643/377 "2025-08-12T21:55:12Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > The star witness for the prosecution was actually the killer. Strange. If you watch enough _Perry Mason_ you come to expect it. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2025, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miscarriage-of-justice-omnibus-thread/943643/378 "2025-08-13T16:34:20Z")
[67 days in jail for a crime he did not commit.](https://www.wrdw.com/2025/04/16/football-player-sues-after-wrongful-murder-accusation-barnwell-county/) The incompetence all around is stunning, even for rural cops. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2025, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miscarriage-of-justice-omnibus-thread/943643/379 "2025-08-13T19:39:08Z")
This particular case was for a particularly stupid reason, but people spending that long in jail for crimes they didn’t commit is really, really common. Jail is primarily for holding suspects before their trial, and the right to a speedy trial is basically ignored by our justice system, so nearly every time someone’s found not guilty, you’ve got someone who was held in jail for a crime they didn’t commit (or at least for one the state couldn’t prove they committed, which should amount to the same thing). ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2025, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miscarriage-of-justice-omnibus-thread/943643/380 "2025-09-18T14:06:12Z")
**John Grisham Still Wonders: Will Texas Kill Robert Roberson?** > Robert Roberson, who was convicted of killing his daughter using now-debunked “junk science” will face execution in less than a month. We talked to author and attorney John Grisham, who is writing the book about the extraordinary case. [https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2025/09/author-john-grisham-still-wonders-will-texas-kill-robert-roberson/](https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2025/09/author-john-grisham-still-wonders-will-texas-kill-robert-roberson/) > For many who have reviewed his voluminous case files, it’s a clear case of a conviction based on “junk science,” an old, debunked understanding of what doctors may see in a child who has been shaken severely… t’s not just that the science behind that diagnosis is considered dubious at best now. Roberson, his attorneys argue, didn’t commit a crime because there was no crime. > > Nikki, they argue, had been frequently sick and had spells where she would stop breathing. In the days leading up to her death, Roberson and his mother had visited an emergency room in Palestine, Texas, and then her pediatrician for diarrhea, vomiting, and coughing. Both times, doctors prescribed Phenergan, an anti-nausea drug that now has an FDA black-box warning about prescribing it to young children. Roberson has insisted that his sick daughter fell from bed in the middle of the night, and when he returned hours later, she was not breathing. He then rushed her to the emergency room. Nikki’s illness and the medication, Roberson’s lawyers say, have never really been explored by the courts as contributing factors to her death. Roberson became a prime suspect when nurses and doctors at the ER and later Children’s Dallas, where Nikki was transported, felt he wasn’t reacting like a parent whose child was in distress. It was only later that he was officially diagnosed with [autism](https://www.dmagazine.com/micropost/dallas-morning-news-poor-word-choice-highlights-an-issue-in-roberson-case/). ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2025, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miscarriage-of-justice-omnibus-thread/943643/381 "2025-09-18T14:14:14Z")
Texas murder an obviously innocent man . . . and he’s not even Black! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miscarriage-of-justice-omnibus-thread/943643.md?page=18) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/miscarriage-of-justice-omnibus-thread/943643.md?page=20)