More evidence of why people don't trust the "system"

[cb1000rider]

There is a lot of conservative support for the death penalty. I'd wager quite a bit in this forum. I simply stated that you'd be blind not to accept that capital justice is going to come at some cost to innocent people. Some people won't care. Some people may care very much. It's hard for human beings to be perfect in anything that we do.

I like your comparison above. I'd extend it a bit:
Like German Shepherds, we should only accept the best of the breed. For LEOs this means that we up the bar in terms of education, training, and psychological testing. If that means we've got to pay them 50% more, 100% more, I'm all for it. I'd rather have 1 good LEO than 3 that may not play fair some of the time. Just like backyard-bred Shepherds are destroying the breed, one bad encounter with a LEO can really damage the credibility and trust of all Law Enforcement.

[bizarrenormality]

If a dog is rabid the only fix is to put them down.

[WildBill]

CNN has a movie on the Michael Morton case called "An Unreal Dream".

It airs this Thursday December 5, 2013.

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/justice/cnn ... real-dream" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Abraham]

How many other folks are in prison that shouldn't be?

I've believed in the system and thought that yes, a few innocents will inevitably be convicted to serve time. That's horrible, but the system isn't perfect. I believed the vast majority serving time deserved to, but now...

This monstrosity of injustice has me profoundly wondering just how many are in prison like the victim that served 25 years.

I can't believe I sound like a bleeding heart liberal, but prosecutors with his track record make me wonder if he's just the tip of the criminal prosecutorial ice berg...?

How many other prosecutors are more interested in counting coup, even if that means exculpatory evidence is withheld or worse...?

Hey man, I don't care if prisoner X is innocent, my track record for wins is all that matters.

NEXT!

[03Lightningrocks]

How many other folks are in prison that shouldn't be?

I've believed in the system and thought that yes, a few innocents will inevitably be convicted to serve time. That's horrible, but the system isn't perfect. I believed the vast majority serving time deserved to, but now...

This monstrosity of injustice has me profoundly wondering just how many are in prison like the victim that served 25 years.

I can't believe I sound like a bleeding heart liberal, but prosecutors with his track record make me wonder if he's just the tip of the criminal prosecutorial ice berg...?

How many other prosecutors are more interested in counting coup, even if that means exculpatory evidence is withheld or worse...?

Hey man, I don't care if prisoner X is innocent, my track record for wins is all that matters.

NEXT!

At the risk of sounding like a pablum puker myself, that is my only problem with the death penalty. Admittedly, I dig revenge as much as any red blooded American but it really stinks when you kill the wrong person. That being said, someone seriously hurts or kills one of my loved ones and I know for sure it was them... let's just say, the state will be saving money on feeding a prisoner waiting on lethal injection.

[WildBill]

How many other folks are in prison that shouldn't be?

Too many. That may be a flippant remark, but what is the acceptable number for people in prison who are not guilty?

[Dave2]

How many other folks are in prison that shouldn't be?

I've believed in the system and thought that yes, a few innocents will inevitably be convicted to serve time. That's horrible, but the system isn't perfect. I believed the vast majority serving time deserved to, but now...

This monstrosity of injustice has me profoundly wondering just how many are in prison like the victim that served 25 years.

I can't believe I sound like a bleeding heart liberal, but prosecutors with his track record make me wonder if he's just the tip of the criminal prosecutorial ice berg...?

How many other prosecutors are more interested in counting coup, even if that means exculpatory evidence is withheld or worse...?

Hey man, I don't care if prisoner X is innocent, my track record for wins is all that matters.

NEXT!

At the risk of sounding like a pablum puker myself, that is my only problem with the death penalty. Admittedly, I dig revenge as much as any red blooded American but it really stinks when you kill the wrong person. That being said, someone seriously hurts or kills one of my loved ones and I know for sure it was them... let's just say, the state will be saving money on feeding a prisoner waiting on lethal injection.

[OT]That's why I'm only in favor of the Death Penalty in cases where the evidence of guilt is overwhelming and there isn't any evidence that points towards their innocence.[/OT]

[C-dub]

For something like this, perjury or withholding evidence, that results in the person being convicted, I think there should be a minimum jail time of at least 1 year. And if the wrongly convicted person serves more than 5 years then the person, DA in this case, should at least half of the time the wrongly convicted did.

[cb1000rider]

[OT]That's why I'm only in favor of the Death Penalty in cases where the evidence of guilt is overwhelming and there isn't any evidence that points towards their innocence.[/OT]

The problem is that we have cases of "scientific" evidence that were later debunked.
We have cases of direct eye-witnesses that were pressured or abused into making statements.
We have cases of confessions where they were coerced under violence or threats of violence.

Scientific evidence, eye-witnesses, and confessions are all pretty much overwhelming evidence to me...

So we kill a few people that didn't do it in order to kill mostly those people that did.
Or we let killers live their lives in prison, costing us less money overall, but maybe giving them a chance to harm someone else..

Tough choices.

[03Lightningrocks]

I don't know if it is cheaper to execute them. By the time we hold them on death row for 20 years and spend a fortune allowing all the appeals processes, maybe life in a 4x8 cell would be cheaper. If it were me, I would rather be dead than spending forever in a cell. Maybe life with no parole would be a harder punishment than death.

[cb1000rider]

I don't know if it is cheaper to execute them. By the time we hold them on death row for 20 years and spend a fortune allowing all the appeals processes, maybe life in a 4x8 cell would be cheaper. If it were me, I would rather be dead than spending forever in a cell. Maybe life with no parole would be a harder punishment than death.

That's what I would have thought also, but apparently it's going to take 20 years and about $2M to execute the average death-penalty offender. Course, we may do it cheaper and faster in Texas.
Do a search.. Here are a few facts and opinions:
http://deathpenalty.procon.org/view.ans ... nID=001000" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So if it costs more, the only real benefit that I see is that you're not giving a bad-guy a chance to hurt someone else in prison..

[Dave2]

[OT]That's why I'm only in favor of the Death Penalty in cases where the evidence of guilt is overwhelming and there isn't any evidence that points towards their innocence.[/OT]

The problem is that we have cases of "scientific" evidence that were later debunked.
We have cases of direct eye-witnesses that were pressured or abused into making statements.
We have cases of confessions where they were coerced under violence or threats of violence.

Scientific evidence, eye-witnesses, and confessions are all pretty much overwhelming evidence to me...

So we kill a few people that didn't do it in order to kill mostly those people that did.
Or we let killers live their lives in prison, costing us less money overall, but maybe giving them a chance to harm someone else..

Tough choices.

Are you talking about the "yeah, i'm pretty sure that's the guy" kind of witness, or the "I've known Bob my whole life... never thought I'd catch him doing that" kind of witness?

[cb1000rider]

Actually, on a jury I know that eyewitnesses have proven to be pretty inaccurate... Course, if coerced, they're going to say what the PD wants them to say. I just hope that kind of stuff doesn't happen any more.

[VoiceofReason]

For something like this, perjury or withholding evidence, that results in the person being convicted, I think there should be a minimum jail time of at least 1 year. And if the wrongly convicted person serves more than 5 years then the person, DA in this case, should at least half of the time the wrongly convicted did.

We have the best criminal justice system money can buy.

[VMI77]

I don't know if it is cheaper to execute them. By the time we hold them on death row for 20 years and spend a fortune allowing all the appeals processes, maybe life in a 4x8 cell would be cheaper. If it were me, I would rather be dead than spending forever in a cell. Maybe life with no parole would be a harder punishment than death.

If I was innocent and going to spend the rest of my life in prison I too would rather be dead, and I'd make sure it happened. The fact that the vast majority of criminals on death row or in prison for life aren't dead, suggests that they'd rather be alive and in prison than dead.