Are you stating this as an opinion? It certainly isn’t the way the law works today. Many people are convicted with no DNA, direct physical evidence, or witness testimony.
Uh, yeah, that’s my point: if the State wasn’t able to prove its case against Casey Anthony, I don’t see how they could have against Peterson. The case against Casey was a lot stronger, and she walked.
Agreed. Peterson was convicted because he was cheating on his pregnant wife. If he hadn’t been doing that, he would have walked.
I hope this isn’t too much of a hijack, but I see that it was just last summer that Peterson’s appeal was filed with the CA Supreme Court. Eight years after his conviction and it is a mandatory appeal. And it’s been over 6 months and the Court hasn’t ruled. Even when they do, he has state and federal habeas left. But let’s just focus on CA.
Why are the courts there so dysfunctional that it takes 8 years for a mandatory appeal to even be filed? This is wrong on all levels. First, to have an effective death penalty, the state needs to put a guilty man to death before he actually dies of old age. Second, for an innocent man, a delay of so long in getting any kind of appellate review is atrocious. What’s the need out there? More court staff? More intermediate courts?
“Are you stating this as an opinion? It certainly isn’t the way the law works today. Many people are convicted with no DNA, direct physical evidence, or witness testimony.”
Anything and everything within CE may be an opinion or conjecture. DNA may rank at the top within a crime investigation, however. DNA evidence may strongly point to a certain conclusion when taken into consideration with other facts, as finger prints and bloody knives, the so called “smoking guns.” However, DNA may be also circumstantial if not directly witnessed by someone when the crime was allegedly committed. When DNA is proved by expert witnesses, it seems usually sufficient to decide a case especially in the absence of any direct evidence. Old, cold cases are being frequently resolved by DNA.
A pile of Circumstantial Evidence (CE) may also be a pile of junk, too. It is not whether a crime was committed by him or her, it is whether the prosecution can scientifically prove the alleged crime or not.
What seems to be the biggest flaw with CE? There may be many, one is that the threshold beyond reasonable doubt seems to exist within an economic scale. The threshold seems easier for a more affluent member of society to get off and harder for a lesser member of society to do the same.
What if you are innocent of the charges but the jury finds that you are guilty based on CE that you know is wrong? The real question is how can you prove your innocence?
For instance, history shows that circumstantial evidence cases get very complex because of the webs of deceit spun by a wily prosecutor determined to sway a jury his or her way to gain a conviction. This has a devastating impact on the middle class and the poor who cannot afford adequate legal counsel. As the case becomes more complex the cost of defending yourself against a false allegation grows impossibly expensive (Reiglesberger, 2012). Would you like to spend your life savings trying to defend yourself against a false allegation? That is assuming you have a large savings account.
Source: Riglesberger, R. (2012). A flawed and imperfect system. Retrieved January 6, 2013, from:A Flawed and Imperfect System
That’s the modern day equivalent of The Bushy Haired Stranger
The West Memphis 3 spent two decades in prison because a jury DID believe it when the prosecution made that claim. If Scott Peterson had lived in Arkanas he might have gotten a not guility.
Yes, and even though the WM3 have been released, they are still legally considered guilty.
Yes, but, the Satanic Cult was in their hands. Peterson’s lawyer had no Satanic Cult that they could call their own.
That was poor planning on Peterson’s part.