If you actually do a little research, you will see that most appeals are a rubber stamps from a higher court. In many cases, the Innocence project and others have found clear evidence that someone didn’t do it - and they are unable to secure an immediate release because the appeals court doesn’t just want to hear “he’s innocent”. You have to make specific legal claims, no matter how compelling your proof is, or the court rejects them on a technicality.
In your analogy, you’re using a faulty ruler to measure a fish, and then you’re double checking the measurement with even lower quality rulers (and if there’s uncertainty, assuming the fish is above the size limit, in the same way that appeals courts usually assume someone is guilty by viewing the judgement in “a light most favorable to the jury verdict” and other shortcuts)
This ignores the part of human nature that leads people who start out pretty sure becoming very sure the more they think about it. Just being challenged can make people more sure, and I’ll bet it happens on this board.
I doubt that people being super-sure means that they are more likely to be be correct.
Well, here’s an example of a clear case where they executed a guy who might not have done it.
At least once, 2 people were involved in a robbery. One person shot the victim dead. The other guy plead out for a reduced sentence and pointed the finger at the guy who ultimately got the death penalty. They’ve executed at least one person recently in a case like this.
Now, you could argue that when 2 people are involved in a murder, they are both guilty, even if one of them did not fire the gun. Ok, fine. But, both robbers claim they didn’t do it, the other guy did it, and they committed the robbery not intending to shoot anyone. Point is, there’s at least a 50% chance that the guilty party holding the smoking gun is the person that wasn’t executed.
How a thing is implemented has nothing to do with the correctness for good or evil of whether that thing should exist at all.
‘Fairness’ is anyway an emotional concept that is not part of justice.
[ In general I doubt humanity’s qualifications for legitimately wasting their fellow man. ]
I support the idea of a death penalty in principle but the way it is carried out in the United States is arbitrary and senseless. To execute someone 25 or 30 years after the crime is committed is simply gratuitous. It obviously serves no rehabilitative purpose and it is so long after the act that it cannot possibly be said to be a deterrence. Does anyone seriously contend that I won’t murder someone today because of a fear that I will be executed in the year 2040?
But I think the OP is on to something. Have a special procedure for capital cases. Once the prosecution announces an intent to seek the death penalty, the system kicks in. I can support the heightened “short of an act of god” standard. The Defendant should then be appointed top notch attorneys. No offense to the PDs but a guy’s life is at stake; he gets to pick his counsel from the best in the community.
Also no expenses (within reason, construed liberally) will be spared. He gets to hire his own experts and independent forensic testing at state expense. Rules of evidence should be heightened and construed against the state. No 404 (b) shit.
Once convicted, however, an expedited appeal process. Habeas and direct appeal combined into one with de novo review of everything, including the propriety of the jury’s verdict. Short briefing times and mandatory times for rulings by the appellate court. One appeal to the state’s supreme court and a review in the federal circuit. Discretionary review by the U.S. Supreme Court. Time from conviction to execution on a timetable of 1 year if affirmed.
I think that this serves everyone’s purpose (obviously except those morally opposed to capital punishment in general). A fair and equal trial with solid appellate review. The state will only bring capital cases against the “worst of the worst” because of the standards needed. And further the death penalty will have some meaning.
If we can’t restore some sanity to the process, it needs abolished.
Isn’t there a standard view that the initial trial determines issues of fact, while appellate review determines issues of law? So if appellate courts are accept the findings of the lower courts as to the facts how is the guy ever going to escape the death penalty when the initial jury made the wrong determination as to the facts?
I don’t think any level of proof would erase the tendency of racist bias to affect the outcomes of the system. So no. Even with such a high level of proof required, I’d still be against the death penalty.
And making the judge risk jail time is a truly horrible idea. You’re just making it even more likely that any mistakes will be aggressively covered up, or at best only anemically examined.
I’m pretty sure (but ANAL) that wrongful facts and bad evidence are valid grounds for appeal. Later discovery of new evidence is also something that can be brought up.
A number of people have been released from prison on the basis of recently discovered DNA evidence, showing them to be innocent. This is one of the purposes of the appeals process.
I can actually agree with a lot of what you’ve said… But it’s not just basic math there.
Also, your original post mentioned the dozens of people who have been released by the appellate courts, not a a fundamental bias in how appellate courts refuse to release people.
The key issue is that I don’t think a higher standard of proof will help mitigate the problems you’re describing. Maybe you can explain by providing an example where someone would be convicted on the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard, but not convicted under an “acts of god” standard?
Trivially. Many murder convictions can be tossed - or at least the death sentence portion of it. Frankly, life imprisonment is almost the same sentence, and should probably be subject to similar rules.
All the defense attorney would have to argue is a series of events involving a conspiracy of no more than 2-3 people, or the use of available technological means to falsify all of the evidence.
If the defense attorney can construct an explanation for *all *of the evidence (no more than 2-3 people in cahoots, or 1-2 mistaken witnesses, or 1-2 people lying convincingly on the stand - we could easily compute a set of concrete rules for this), the judge has to dismiss the death penalty part of the case. (this wouldn’t be up to a jury vote as it wouldn’t really be subjective)
For example, any case where the only evidence specifically implicating the defendant is the testimony of a person who will receive a reduced sentence in return for their testimony can be pretty much automatically tossed.
That happened over here in the UK with the ‘Birmingham Six’, convicted of pub bombings in 1974. The ‘expert’ witness, scientist Dr. Skuse, testified that some of the six had handled nitro glycerine after testing swabs taken from their fingers. It later transpired that he had miscalculated by a factor of ten in the tests carried out, and the positive results came about from playing with a brand new pack of cards.
Had we still had the death penalty they would have been hanged, a point the judge in the trial made very clear in his summing up.
