Georgia might have executed an innocent man

[Sector 7]

The "good christian southerners" have been killing innocent people for decades. Fucking animals.

Many of us "good Christian southerners" are against killing innocent people. The Hillside strangler, Charles Manson, Son of Sam, John Wayne Gacy and many more were not "southerners" nor were they executed by Southerners. Another irrational generalization by siskokid888.

It wasn't the first time and it wont be the last. Sadly this case will not change anything either.

We have 3,000+ people on death row, some whose only crime was being dark skinned.

I taught ABE (Adult Basic Education... teaching illiterate people to read and write) in a Southern prison. One of the most common 'arguments' I heard was this:
-Damn racist cops! It was racial profiling! Yeah, I had a kilo of heroin/cocaine/marijuana/etc. Yeah, I had an illegal gun. Yeah, it was a stolen car/SUV and the tail light was busted... but the damn cop pulled me over 'cause I'm black!

It is easy to blame everything on race, but the truth is: many people of many races ARE guilty of the crimes they committed. The system is imperfect; I agree. It is also the most fair system in the world. Do we get it wrong? Yes, occasionally. This is why the death penalty, IMO, should only be used when DNA and hard physical evidence PROVES positively that the person is guilty.

In the case of Troy Davis, I think Georgia may have executed an innocent man. The lack of DNA and hard physical evidence should have taken the death penalty off the table. They police will do anything to put away a suspected cop killer. In this case Davis was considered guilty until proven innocent... he didn't have a chance. I am a former police officer. One of the reasons I quit the force was the "Blue Wall" or "Good Old Boy" mentality of cops sticking together right or wrong. I disagree with that mentality. [I also made 4 times my cop salary as a private body guard, but that is a different story.]

 

[Alidar Jarok]

It's a miscarriage of justice even if a guilty person is convicted if they were convicted for reasons other than the evidence.

Most people convicted are guilty. Most people convicted are convicted because the evidence says they are guilty. But every time that doesn't happen, it's a travesty. And our error rate is too high.

 

[Trekker4747]

We have 3,000+ people on death row, some whose only crime was being dark skinned.

Hyperbole much? I'm pretty sure we don't put people on death-row just because they're dark skinned. I'm sure the murders and such might have something to do with it.

 

[FPAlpha]

From what i read about the case it boggles my mind that someone could be sentenced to death on such flimsy "evidence".. sentence him to life in prison if you must but if you decide to kill someone for a crime they have committed you better have a bulletproof case with no leeway and doubt and with hard evidence.

A sad day for justice and the law.

 

[Paradon]

That's what the appeals are for, aren't it? If they did find any reasonable doubt, he would have been clear already. Unless the court is very corrupted, which I seriously doubt. I respect most officers of the laws; they're take their jobs very seriously to put pervs behind bars to protect people like us. Why didn't they make this an issue a long time ago...and just now making a big bang?

Can somebody enlighten me on this issue? I haven't been following it. I just found out today.

The Jury trial is nearly absolute. The jury determines guilt or innocence. No one wants to question it. It takes quite a lot to overturn this. In this case, iirc, 7 out of 9 witnesses recanted their testimony. But the Judge at the hearing only found some of those who recanted to be credible with their recantations. I guess he believed that others were telling the truth then and were lying now with their recantations. I can't remember how many that leaves, but it would be closer to three or four who recanted. So the Judges simply said that some jury could possibly have concluded there would be guilt with the remaining witnesses who didn't recant. The standard at this point isn't whether the Judges at the hearing believe a person is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt but whether some non-insane jury could have believed this.

The appeals process is primarily about whether you had a fair trial, not whether you are innocent. You could be innocent but had a fair trial and there's little that can be done.

NO, I think in this case the appeals are for people on death rows just in case someone turns out to innocent...if they could prove it beyond reasonable doubt.

I'm still wondering, though. Is it a coincident that they are making a huge deal out of this because it is getting close to election time?

 

[Tora Ziyal]

NO, I think in this case the appeals are for people on death rows just in case someone turns out to innocent...if they could prove it beyond reasonable doubt.

Paradon, it's guilt, not innocence, that has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. That's true of any criminal case.

 

[Paradon]

I'm saying the appeals are for people who have been wrongly convicted. If there is any evidence that can prove otherwise, then the conviction can be overturned...I think. That's why it's so expensive to keep people on death row...you have to wait until they exhaust all the appeals which by then cause millions of dollars.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

That's what the appeals are for, aren't it? If they did find any reasonable doubt, he would have been clear already. Unless the court is very corrupted, which I seriously doubt. I respect most officers of the laws; they're take their jobs very seriously to put pervs behind bars to protect people like us. Why didn't they make this an issue a long time ago...and just now making a big bang?

Can somebody enlighten me on this issue? I haven't been following it. I just found out today.

The Jury trial is nearly absolute. The jury determines guilt or innocence. No one wants to question it. It takes quite a lot to overturn this. In this case, iirc, 7 out of 9 witnesses recanted their testimony. But the Judge at the hearing only found some of those who recanted to be credible with their recantations. I guess he believed that others were telling the truth then and were lying now with their recantations. I can't remember how many that leaves, but it would be closer to three or four who recanted. So the Judges simply said that some jury could possibly have concluded there would be guilt with the remaining witnesses who didn't recant. The standard at this point isn't whether the Judges at the hearing believe a person is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt but whether some non-insane jury could have believed this.

The appeals process is primarily about whether you had a fair trial, not whether you are innocent. You could be innocent but had a fair trial and there's little that can be done.

NO, I think in this case the appeals are for people on death rows just in case someone turns out to innocent...if they could prove it beyond reasonable doubt.

I'm still wondering, though. Is it a coincident that they are making a huge deal out of this because it is getting close to election time?

I'll explain the system and see if this helps.

First there is a direct appeal. Here, they examine questions of legal error. Guilt or innocence is not considered at all. This case was in Georgia so it would go to the Georgia Supreme Court (or whatever it is called).

Then there is what is known as a collateral attack. The prisoner files a habeas corpus petition and says he is being wrongfully imprisoned. There are three types of questions he can raise. One is ineffective assistance of counsel. The second is legal error, once again. However, because of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, courts only review legal error to see if the judge was clearly erroneous with his ruling on the law. If it's a reasonable interpretation, it gets upheld even if the new Judge disagrees.

Finally, you can argue that new evidence sufficiently undermines the credibility of the verdict so as to cast doubt on guilt. It has to be evidence that could not have been discovered at the time. A Judge would hold a hearing. He'd examine the new evidence. Then he'd take the rest of the evidence and decide essentially if some jury could still have found a person guilty. New evidence, alleging factual innocence, is rarely enough.

Here is Justice Rehnquist in Herrera v. Collins:

“Federal courts are not forums in which to relitigate state trials.” The guilt or innocence determination in state criminal trials is “a decisive and portentous event.” “Society's resources have been concentrated at that time and place in order to decide, within the limits of human fallibility, the question of guilt or innocence of one of its citizens.” Few rulings would be more disruptive of our federal system than to provide for federal habeas review of freestanding claims of actual innocence.

(Citations Omitted)

It's a mistake to think the appeals process is about whether someone is actually innocent. It might be raised in a collateral attack and, in rare circumstances, actually succeed. But to think questions of guilt or innocence was raised in every step of the appeals process is incorrect. The Jury decides guilt and innocence and it's very difficult to overturn this.

 

[Paradon]

Exactly...if they...the jury...found you guilty, it's hard to overturn the conviction. That's why we have the jury system, so everyone gets a fair chance in court. Unless, something was seriously flawed...it's hard that 7 jurors could have made the same mistake and sentenced an innocent man to prison or on death row. It only takes 1 or 2 juror to disagree to cause a hung trial. If that happened...if they did send an innocent to prison, then their was probably a prosecutorial misconduct or the police messed up somehow. In which they have to prove...like you said.

 

[Whoa Nellie]

Officer Down: Honoring and remembering Mark MacPhail

http://www.examiner.com/news-you-ca...r-down-honoring-and-remembering-mark-macphail

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Exactly...if they...the jury...found you guilty, it's hard to overturn the conviction. That's why we have the jury system, so everyone gets a fair chance in court. Unless, something was seriously flawed...it's hard that 7 jurors could have made the same mistake and sentenced an innocent man to prison or on death row. It only takes 1 or 2 juror to disagree to cause a hung trial. If that happened...if they did send an innocent to prison, then their was probably a prosecutorial misconduct or the police messed up somehow. In which they have to prove...like you said.

First off, 12 jurors. Unless Georgia is one of those states that have less than 12 for some reason (I've had little luck finding this), it would be a unanimous vote of 12 (they aren't one of the few states that allow for non-unanimous votes).

As for how could all of them convict a person. Several reasons. One, they do. All the time. Witnesses are mistaken, the person was in an unfortunate situation that suggested guilt, or the evidence points to several people and the jury selected the wrong one. Maybe they're also just afraid to mistakenly let someone out of jail who might be the killer, so they decide to convict. Maybe bias was involved. Plenty of people have been later found innocent due to DNA evidence. This evidence has cast doubt on the considerable number of cases with similar fact patterns but no DNA evidence to confirm one way or the other.
Second, in this case, the jury heard testimony that the witnesses who gave it later claim to have been a lie. That's certainly a strong suggestion of why they convicted a person who very well may be innocent.

BTW, what's your point here. In your other post, you said the appeals process was to determine factual innocence. I pointed out that it is not. Only rarely will such a circumstance succeed even if true. Then you said that, if a jury finds you guilty, it's hard to overturn the conviction. Of course this is true, but it's the exact opposite of what you said in your other post. I'm a little confused at what you're trying to argue.

 

[MacLeod]

Like everything else in life nothing can really ever be 100% certain, oh it be 99.99999 ad infinutum, but there is always that minisucle possibility of era.

In court, it's beyond reasonable doubt, not beyound absolute doubt.

 

[Paradon]

Well, I don't really understand that profoundly because I'm not a lawyer, so it's more difficult for me to put my thought together in words.

But I still doubt that if there was any doubt that it was a wrongful conviction, the supreme court would have to follow the laws and let him/her go...

That may be true that DNA testings may have cast doubt over certain cases, but the fact is less than 40% of the crime committed are brought to justice. Most people violent criminals are set free than being put in prisons. I'm not sure of the exact number.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

But I still doubt that if there was any doubt that it was a wrongful conviction, the supreme court would have to follow the laws and let him/her go...

I'm not quite sure what you're saying here. Are you saying, if the Supreme Court thinks it might have been a wrongful conviction but aren't sure, they'll let it stand? That's not quite the rule. It's also not helpful. That's a pretty low standard. It means someone might have done it. Suppose there was a murder in a room with 5 people. Only one of them did it, but no one knows who. Under that standard, it's OK to execute all 5.

That may be true that DNA testings may have cast doubt over certain cases, but the fact is less than 40% of the crime committed are brought to justice. Most people violent criminals are set free than being put in prisons. I'm not sure of the exact number.

Do you have any numbers to back up those statements? That might be true, but it's also true that our society never wants to punish the innocent. There is no justifiable reason to. We want a firm and definite conviction beyond all rational doubts that the person convicted is actually guilty.

 

[CaptainStoner]

It's a shame that they didn't stop this execution. I'm against the death penalty for all cases, even where it's a 100% certainty, like in my country the mass murderer terrorist Breivik, but if you're going to have it, then atleast reserve it for cases where there's no doubt

Seven of nine witnesses against Mr. Davis recanted after trial. Six said the police threatened them if they did not identify Mr. Davis. The man who first told the police that Mr. Davis was the shooter later confessed to the crime. There are other reasons to doubt Mr. Davis’s guilt: There was no physical evidence linking him to the crime introduced at trial, and new ballistics evidence broke the link between him and a previous shooting that provided the motive for his conviction. - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/21/opinion/a-grievous-wrong-on-georgias-death-row.html?_r=4&hp

A damn shame...

You know, so many of these miscarriages of justice come down to police interrogation practices. That whole process is corrupt, where the police constantly lie and threaten to get people to say things.
If a citizen asks for a lawyer, the law says the interrogation has to stop until the lawyer shows. I think it would be better to just disallow interrogation without legal representation. Most people just don't know they don't have to talk to the police (in an interrogation).

 

[Paradon]

But I still doubt that if there was any doubt that it was a wrongful conviction, the supreme court would have to follow the laws and let him/her go...

I'm not quite sure what you're saying here. Are you saying, if the Supreme Court thinks it might have been a wrongful conviction but aren't sure, they'll let it stand? That's not quite the rule. It's also not helpful. That's a pretty low standard. It means someone might have done it. Suppose there was a murder in a room with 5 people. Only one of them did it, but no one knows who. Under that standard, it's OK to execute all 5.

That may be true that DNA testings may have cast doubt over certain cases, but the fact is less than 40% of the crime committed are brought to justice. Most people violent criminals are set free than being put in prisons. I'm not sure of the exact number.

Do you have any numbers to back up those statements? That might be true, but it's also true that our society never wants to punish the innocent. There is no justifiable reason to. We want a firm and definite conviction beyond all rational doubts that the person convicted is actually guilty.

I read a long time ago and I'm not sure I'm correct either. So don't take my words for it. I think You might be right. You seem to know more about the laws than I do.

 

[MacLeod]

It's a shame that they didn't stop this execution. I'm against the death penalty for all cases, even where it's a 100% certainty, like in my country the mass murderer terrorist Breivik, but if you're going to have it, then atleast reserve it for cases where there's no doubt

Seven of nine witnesses against Mr. Davis recanted after trial. Six said the police threatened them if they did not identify Mr. Davis. The man who first told the police that Mr. Davis was the shooter later confessed to the crime. There are other reasons to doubt Mr. Davis’s guilt: There was no physical evidence linking him to the crime introduced at trial, and new ballistics evidence broke the link between him and a previous shooting that provided the motive for his conviction. - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/21/opinion/a-grievous-wrong-on-georgias-death-row.html?_r=4&hp

A damn shame...

You know, so many of these miscarriages of justice come down to police interrogation practices. That whole process is corrupt, where the police constantly lie and threaten to get people to say things.
If a citizen asks for a lawyer, the law says the interrogation has to stop until the lawyer shows. I think it would be better to just disallow interrogation without legal representation. Most people just don't know they don't have to talk to the police (in an interrogation).

That greatly depends on what country you are in. in the US for example you have a right to silence, however in the UK whilst you can remain silent you are warned that it may harm your defense anything you fail to mention when being questioned that you later rely upon in court.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

You still can have a solicitor present when you talk with the police.