Of course it’s “reaching a conclusion not based on a case by case analysis as the judicial system requires.” That’s because the dude is dead. But it isn’t “a guess” any more than any well-supported statistical inference is a guess.
The fact is that the actual lawyers who spend money investigating and acquitting people to a high level of evidentiary standards do so only for the living, not the dead. It’s both a matter of prioritization and a matter of not having access to everything needed to do so for the dead.
There are media investigations of those who have been executed. A half-dozen of them are very persuasive, but they do not rise to the level of evidence that would be necessary to exonerate someone.
But there’s no impartial authority that does this. There is, in the case of Willingham, a scientific review that concluded the evidence used to convict Willingham was horribly flawed. The report is here and it’s very long, but the gist is that based on contemporary science, forensic investigators said the fire had been set deliberately - but the science has improved and none of those points actually show the fire was arson. The review board isn’t able to determine that Willingham was innocent, of course. They had a specific job with regard to evaluating evidence from the fire itself, although there were other serious problems with the case including the usual mix of prosecutorial misconduct and lying jailhouse informants. And of course the Innocence Project was heavily involved in getting the case reviewed because how wouldn’t they be? That’s their job and it’s difficult for individuals to do this kind of thing on their own. With no impartial authority the best anybody can do is seek a posthumous pardon, which the Willingham family is doing. But pardons can be granted or denied for any reason and I’ll be surprised if Rick Perry grants that pardon since he was no fan of the investigation itself.
But we can start there if you like. A man was convicted and executed based on evidence that was said to prove he set a fire that killed his children, and today scientists know that evidence was misinterpreted. At least one of the people involved with the initial investigation admits the same. Does that add up to a wrongful conviction in your view?
The vast majority of people who support the death penalty will not change their position upon learning that sometimes innocent people are killed.
[/QUOTE]
And the vast majority of people who oppose the death penalty will not change their position on any specific execution upon learning that the person was actually guilty. As witnessed by the Roger Coleman cite above.
It cannot be the case that they oppose the death penalty because an innocent person might be executed, because even in cases where there is essentially no chance that the person is innocent, they still oppose the execution.
[QUOTE=Richard Parker]
… sometimes innocent people are killed.
[/QUOTE]
Prove it.
And the dude had a “case by case analysis” before he was dead. It’s called a trial, and then that analysis is reviewed multiple times by appellate courts, all on a case by case basis.
I once had a defense attorney attempt to admit evidence of the statistical rate of incarceration of people convicted of the crime the defendant had been convicted of. The judge, rightly, found that to be inadmissible. That’s because we make determinations in the criminal justice system based on that case by case basis, not based on statistical likelihood of guilt.
Personally, I would love to have been able to argue that my conviction rate must mean that this defendant is guilty, or that the defendant has committed prior crimes, so it’s statistically likely he did this one, but luckily for eveyone, the criminal justice system doesn’t work like that.
I think you seriously underestimate the amount of research, work, and analysis that is spent on these very issues.
I have yet to find any that I would call “very persuasive”. A vast majority of them, and many of them argued on this very message board, end up being gross misstatements of the facts and/or the law and more media driven hype than actual analysis. That was true for Roy Stewart, Mumia Abu Jamal, Jesse Tafero, Roger Coleman, Joseph O’Dell, and for most every case that gets raised every 6 months or so on this board as proof on an innocent person being put to death. I am not saying that it is impossible or that everyone executed is 100% guilty, but none of the raised cases ever get even close to “very persuasive”.
Some statistical inferences are valid. Others are not. Some meet an applicable burden of proof. Others do not.
If your claim is that we don’t use statistics to prove facts in courts of law, you’re wildly wrong. I hire experts on statistics once a year or more. We use them all the time, from racial profiling to medical malpractice.
If your claim is that we don’t convice people of crimes based on gross statistical inferences, then…well…duh. Obviously, no one was making that claim. (Of course, we do convict people based on well-founded inferences all the time).
More to the point, we aren’t talking about evidence in a court of law. We are talking about evidence for your beliefs about the death penalty.
I don’t have any real interest in hashing out individual cases with you. But for what it’s worth based on your list, you seem to be focused on the political cause celebres rather than the cases lawyers for the Innocence Project and others find most persuasive. If I have a free moment, I’ll find you a nice link I found once collecting all the articles and research on a few of them.
No kidding. I don’t know what point you think you’re proving here. If that’s meant to be an analogy to using the statistics on exoneration to prove the likelihood that an innocent person was not exonerated, it is a bad analogy for several reasons. I’m certain you could list them if you tried.
I’m not trying to win anything. I was trying to be helpful by suggesting you’ve focused on politically popular cases but not on the ones with good evidence. As I said, if I can find the link, I’ll post it. But you’re free to claim “victory” all you want, whatever that means here.
That saying “these people were innocent, therefore, these people are innocent” is no different than “these people were guilty, so these people are guilty” and both have no relevance to the determination of guilt of innocence of an individual person.
Sorry if I’m too curt for you. I’ve danced this dance numerous times before on this board, and it’s always the same.
For one, we are not using this inference to infer the guilt or innocence of any particular person. Just the statistical likelihood that some innocent person was killed. You analogue commits a logical fallacy, while the actual argument being analogized to does not.
For another, we are not trying to prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt. We are talking about the evidence for your personal beliefs about the death penalty. Either you do or do not believe that innocent people have been executed. This statistical inference is one compelling piece of evidence to add to your weighing of the evidence on that issue.
I’m am a bit boggled that you think we just happened to exonerate the only 18 people who were ever falsely convicted. I can only guess that you are misinterpreting my claim, and think I’m arguing that this proves that any particular individual is innocent.
It really isn’t that hard to understand. Determinations of guilt or innocence are made on a case by case basis. To replace that case by case determination in favor of “well, it’s statistically likely” is rejecting solid evidence in favor of supposition. Me, I prefer to rely on actual evidence. I don’t think that’s all that difficult to understand, and I’m sorry you’re having trouble grasping it.
No, you just think it proves that someone is innocent, but you can’t be bothered to actually show who that person is. Despite the fact that each and every one had a trial, were convicted, and went through a string of appeals, you would rather rely on a statistical guess than the actual evidence that has been presented in those cases. I understand it would be a lot of work to go through the 1,342 cases to find a particular one, but I also think that many people already have and yet we haven’t found one that is, to use your term, “very persuasive”.
Yes, but courts only litigate active issues. Once a person has been executed no court will hear evidence of the dead person’s guilt or innocence, because the issue is settled.
The only such cases that could be heard would be allegations of misconduct by the authorities. And such cases wouldn’t address the actual guilt or innocence of the executed person, but the actions of the prosecutors and cops and so on. Showing that a defendant got railroaded by the prosecutor is not the same as showing that the defendant was actually innocent.
I should probably apologize for having raised the issue of innocents being executed at all – but Shodan also owes an apology for having altered what I said before he demanded I provide a cite.
My point is that expensive and long trials are a big part of why it is so rare for innocent people to be convicted. Miscarriages of justice, in the past, led to the creation of our modern system.
Nobody ever sat down and decided long expensive trials were a good thing for their own sake. Our system of trials evolved over time, in order to address specific flaws as they become evident. If there had never been any such flaws, then modern trials would still be quick and cheap.
It is possible that longer, more expensive trials would produce better results. No one can specify exactly where the point is of vanishing returns.
In THIS country, we havbe a legal system. People are charged and accused, based on testimony and evidence. They are tried and then either convicted or acquitted based on testimony and evidence. This is the law. If an innocent man is acquitted, it is justice. If a guitly man is convicted, it is justice. We don’t need a “we know you did it so let’s go right to the hanging”. I wonder how many “obviously guilty” people turned out to be innocent - after the execution.
In THIS country, everyone is legally entitled to a fair, speedy, public trial - even if you know they are guilty :dubious: . That is the law.
You are ignoring the facts. Nidal’s trial was NOT “speedy”. And it was a military court martial-not a civil criminal trial. The fact is, he was guilty, admitted he was guilty, and wanted to plead guilty. there was no need to spend $1 million on expert witnesses".
yeah, I know, the “law” trumps common sense. The law in its majesty, is an ass.
And, for the benefit of the taxpayers,is that $5 million expenditure even remotely justifiable?:smack:
Ironically (I think), the trial took much longer precisely because it was taking place in a military court. There were a lot of delays related to his beard and whether or not it violated military regulations. It seemed ridiculous to me, too, but it wouldn’t have happened in a civilian court. Other than that your statement about the court martial is irrelevant. The rules for military trials are different but the basic principles we’re talking about still apply.
Yes. This was a very unusual case in a lot of ways- the biggest one being that a defendant was trying to use the legal system to commit suicide. The system isn’t built for that and it’s not something we want. And anyway, deciding that something is wrong with the justice system based on unusual cases isn’t a good way to make laws or a good reason to make the rules. The issue is significant and $5 million is a tiny expense in a society of 310 million.
It’s been reported, and mentioned in this thread, that military rules do not allow defendants to plead guilty in cases where the death penalty may be invoked. There seems to be no mechanism to arbitrarily bypass this rule. Are you ignoring this apparent fact?
I bet you and I have lost more small change in our sofas than this trial cost you or I personally, so I have a hard time giving a damn.
I support neither side in this, but your reasoning is flawed. If it has been found that the case by case process for establishing guilt has a certain non zero error in the sample of those prisoners who are on death row but haven’t been executed, then it is a valid statement to make that the process probably does have some non zero error for the cases where the execution has been carried out. Unless there is a systematic difference between the two samples. I have no knowledge of whether or not such is the case.