Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
say what you want, phil, but if I am an innocent man and I am put to death, regardless of the seriousness of the crime that I was supposed to have committed, my actual innocence makes the punishment ultimately cruel and unusual.
You cannot convict a person based on a making a mistaken ID. That's pushing it a bit far.
DNA exonerated a "score" of death row inmates? Methinks you might be exaggerating.
Flipside: It appears from a glance at the surface, it is far more likely to be criminal let off the hook than a wrongly convicted death row inmate in this country.
I do not have a problem with forfeiture of life for certain crimes. I have and DO take issue with HOW the death penalty is applied.
1. how do you know it was accidental?
2. I know that...I only suggested that would be a just resolution.
3. he was picked out of a photo lineup by a woman who lived five doors down from him. that was the state's case. she sent him to jail for a quarter of a century. what does she do now? say..."my bad" and call it square?
4. and it is for this very reason that I am certain that the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment. Given the experiences in Illinois just a few years ago where DNA exonerated a score of death row inmates, you have to be sucking on the koolaid pretty fucking hard to not accept the fact that the likelihood that we have, in this country, executed innocent men before. Being killed for a crime that one did not commit is the ultimate cruel and unusual punishment, wouldn't you agree?
I don't. Neither do you.
If she knowingly did it, I'm inclined to agree.
If she knew when she fingered him, it was the wrong guy, fine. I have no problem punsihing her. Do you want here to suffer for the rest of her life for a mistake?
This may be the dumbest argument I've heard against the death penalty. It's cruel and unusual because innocent people get caught in it? For stupid. If it's cruel and unusual, isn't it cruel and unusual regardless of the guilt or innocence of the individual being put to death? Hell if person is really innocent, any punishment is cruel and unusual isn't it? Is the death penalty not cruel and unusual for murdering rapists?
If you want to argue the death penalty, argue it. Don't argue flaws in the legal system as excuses.
if the system by which we determine guilt for crimes where we execute the offenders is so flawed as to convict - and no doubt execute - citizens who did not commit the crime, it is the cruelest and most unusual punishment possible - one for which there is not redress at a later time when the error might be revealed.
Again my question: Isn't any punishment placed upon an innocent person cruel and unusual? It has nothing to do with the death penalty. Take away the death penatly, fine. How did it the help improve the efficiency and accuracy of our justice system? Answer would be it didn't. In fact, one could argue that it makes for an excuse to be less accurate. "Who cares if we get it wrong the first time. We'll just let 'em out later if we find out we're wrong."
any punishment other than the death penalty is reversible and compensable
u don't get to back traxk now bub. Your original argument wasn't whether the punishment was reversible. it was that it was cruel and unusual.
You identified the problem; that our jsutice system is not 100% accurate. You simply came up with a solution that doesn't solve that problem or come even remotely close to addressing it.
It seems to be happening everyday now. DNA saves innocent people. How many other innocents must suffer for the over zealousness and misguided judgements of District Attorneys, Sheriffs, Deputy's and Policemen where DNA is not a factor? Think about it, children.
By JEFF CARLTON, Associated Press Writer
Thu Jan 3, 6:25 PM ET
DALLAS - Three times during his nearly 27 years in prison, Charles Chatman went before a parole board and refused to admit he was a rapist. His steadfastness was vindicated Thursday, when a judge released him because of new DNA evidence showing he indeed wasn't. The release of Chatman, 47, added to Dallas County's nationally unmatched number of wrongfully convicted inmates.
"Every time I'd go to parole, they'd want a description of the crime or my version of the crime," Chatman said. "I don't have a version of the crime. I never committed the crime. I never will admit to doing this crime that I know I didn't do."
District Judge John Creuzot, whom defense lawyers credited with shepherding Chatman's case for exoneration through the legal system, recommended that Texas' Court of Criminal Appeals find Chatman not guilty. With several relatives dabbing at their eyes with tissues and cheering, Chatman was released.
"I really can't tell you how I feel," said his aunt, Ethel Barley. "But I can tell you it is a different feeling than I have had in a long time, just to be holding his own hand."
Before the crime is officially cleared from Chatman's record, the appeals court must accept the recommendation or the governor must grant a pardon. Either step is considered a formality after Creuzot's ruling.
Chatman became the 15th inmate from Dallas County since 2001 to be freed by DNA testing. He served more time than any of the other inmates, four of whom were in court Thursday to show their support.
Dallas has freed more inmates after DNA testing than any other county nationwide, said Natalie Roetzel of the Innocence Project of Texas. Texas leads the country in prisoners freed by DNA testing, releasing at least 30 wrongfully convicted inmates since 2001, according to the Innocence Project.
One of the biggest reasons for the large number of exonerations is the crime lab used by Dallas County, which accounts for about half the state's DNA cases. Unlike many jurisdictions, the lab used by police and prosecutors retains biological evidence, meaning DNA testing is a viable option for decades-old crimes.
District Attorney Craig Watkins also attributes the exonerations to a past culture of overly aggressive prosecutors seeking convictions at any cost. Watkins has started a program in which law students, supervised by the Innocence Project of Texas, are reviewing about 450 cases in which convicts have requested DNA testing to prove their innocence.
"It is time we stop kidding ourselves in believing that what happened in Dallas is somehow unique," said Jeff Blackburn, the founder of the Innocence Project of Texas. "What happened in Dallas is common. This is Texas."
The hearing attracted a standing-room-only crowd that included Watkins, who was greeted warmly by two wrongly convicted Dallas men who have since won their freedom. Also there was state Rep. Terri Hodge, a member of the criminal jurisprudence committee, who promised unspecified reforms when the Legislature convenes in 2009.
Chatman was 20 when the victim, a young woman in her 20s, picked him from a lineup. Chatman said he lived five houses down from the victim for 13 years but never knew her.
She identified him in court as the attacker, and serology tests showed that the type of blood found at the crime scene matched that of Chatman along with 40 percent of other black males.
Chatman said he was working at the time of the assault, an alibi supported by his sister, who was also his employer. Nevertheless, Chatman was convicted of aggravated sexual assault in 1981 and sentenced to 99 years in prison.
Chatman said he believes his race led to his arrest and conviction. The jury, he said, had one black member.
"I was convicted because a black man committed a crime against a white woman," Chatman said. "And I was available."
Chatman said he wants to work with the Innocence Project of Texas to support other people exonerated or wrongly convicted.
"I believe that there are hundreds, and I know of two or three personally that very well could be sitting in this seat if they had the support and they had the backing that I have," Chatman said. "My No. 1 interest is trying to help people who have been in the situation I am ,,,,,,,,,
More: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080103/ap_on_re_us/dna_exoneration;_ylt=Ah715fu6T8qMnk4loEwp_WoDW7oF
I know that life ain't fair, but is this justified in any way?
any punishment other than the death penalty is reversible and compensable
27 years in prison?
That's not reversible, Maineman. I still oppose the death penalty, but the mentality in our current age seems to be that it's better to put 10 innocent men in jail than let 1 guilty man go free.
27 years in prison?
That's not reversible, Maineman. I still oppose the death penalty, but the mentality in our current age seems to be that it's better to put 10 innocent men in jail than let 1 guilty man go free.
it is not reversible, but it is compensable.... and I am sure you would agree that a death penalty sentence, mistakenly carried out, is neither.
it is not reversible, but it is compensable.... and I am sure you would agree that a death penalty sentence, mistakenly carried out, is neither.
of course. But again that wasn't your argument. Are really oppossed to capital punishment in principle? Or are you oppossed to because of the flaws in the justice system? Your arguments continue to sound like the later. Yet you beleive the solution to that is to get rid of the death penalty, which makes no sense.
of course. But again that wasn't your argument. Are really oppossed to capital punishment in principle? Or are you oppossed to because of the flaws in the justice system? Your arguments continue to sound like the later. Yet you beleive the solution to that is to get rid of the death penalty, which makes no sense.
intellectually, I am against the death penalty in principle.
emotionally, I am against the death penalty because there can be little doubt that we have killed innocent people because simply because twelve ordinary citizens thought they should die.
I strongly believe in getting rid of capital punishment along with being tough on crime. I want life sentences to be life sentences (unless later irrefutable evidence clears to convict). I want chain gangs and tough labor for inmates. Lets take away the television and other amusements. They say that jails are overcrowded. I dont think that they are that full. Some people can sleep on the floor. Lets cram some more violent criminals in there. At the same time, lets end the death penalty.
