From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Sat Jul 27 2002 - 20:01:16 MDT
On 27 Jul 2002 at 18:35, Hermit wrote:
>
> [Hermit 1] Based on discussions with senior officers and judiciary, and
assuming the prevalence is similar to more conventional "salting"
practice,
perhaps in 40% to 60% of criminal cases...
>
> [Hermit 1] Certainly not miniscule by my reading, but better than in the
case of testimony purchased in return for plea-bargains or remissions.
>
> [Joe Dees 2] I consider your estimate to be quite high. Are you saying
that roughly half the inmates convicted of violent crimes are innocent?
>
> [Hermit 3] Not at all. Most of them are, in the opinion of the officers
involved, really nasty pieces of work who absolutely deserve what they
get. Quite frequently, society would agree that the officers are probably
correct.
>
> [Hermit 3] Unfortunately for the officers, the rules don't work that way.
Unfortunately for some accused, the officers are usually quite
competent
to redress this perceived unfairness. The justice system appears to be
heading that way too. e.g. Mere factual innocence is no reason not to
carry out a death sentence properly reached" ["Justice" Scalia]
>
it's a necessary and sufficient reason, because if the accused is
innocent, the sentence reached was not proper.
>
> [Hermit 3] All I was suggesting is that not infrequently, the accused is
quite possibly not guilty of the specific crime which gets them put away.
Percentage wise, I'd hate to hazard a guess. This is not a subject that is
discussed much publically by anyone involved in it.
>
Most murders never result in a conviction at all, I understand. I believe
that the conviction percentage is around 20%, mostly due to reasonable
doubt or the lack of sufficient evidence to go to trial.
>
> [Hermit 3] What is being discussed, with ever greater frequency, is the
extraordinary number of innocent people who have been
executed.[quote]
The ruling by a federal judge in New York (see below) that the death
penalty is unconstitutional received wide national coverage and
support.
In his decision Judge Jed Rakoff noted: "In brief, the Court found that
the
best available evidence indicates that, on the one hand, innocent
people
are sentenced to death with materially greater frequency than was
previously supposed and that, on the other hand, convincing proof of
their
innocence often does not emerge until long after their convictions. It is
therefore fully foreseeable that in enforcing the death penalty, a
meaningful
number of innocent people will be executed who otherwise would
eventually
be able to prove their innocence." To draw his conclusions, Rakoff used
information compiled by a number of national researchers and experts,
including the Death Penalty Information Center's innocence data. In his
decision, he noted that DPIC's innocence list is based on "reasonably
strict and objective standards in listing and describing the data and
summaries that appear on its website." Read the ruling
(http://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/rulings/quinones.pdf). See also,
Innocence
(http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innoc.html) and DPIC's Press Release
(http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/PR-DPICRakoff.pdf).
>
> [Hermit 3] Given that cases awarded the DP tend to draw a great deal
more investigations than those who do not, and given that according to
the
DPIC (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innoc.html), 101 people in 24
states
have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence
since
1973, what percentage of much less scrutinized cases do you think
were
rigged*?
>
That is why the procedure is so slow, cumbersome and inefficient,
requiring many appeals and years, so that all available evidence can be
rerererechecked. That is also why our government in general is so
slow, cubersome and inefficient.
The funny thing is that I do not believe that anyone has been able to
present a single case in which an actually executed person was
subsequently found to be innocent of the crime for which (s)he was
executed. Do you know of any?
people who kill are not just gonna be allowed to walk the streets
unpunished; society will not stand for it. Would you prefer vigilante
justice? I have to believe that our present system is better than that
alternative. Do you have an even better one available that protects
both the right of innocents not to be unjustly murdered by the state and
the right of innocents not to be unjuectly murdered by freed killers, as
happens much more frequently in our society?
>
>
> Regards
>
> Hermit
>
> *rigged as in, "You can't win, you can't break-even, but it's the only game
in town!"
>
>
> ----
> This message was posted by Hermit to the Virus 2002 board on Church of Virus BBS.
> <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;threadid=25812>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Sep 25 2002 - 13:28:49 MDT