> Just hope you don't get tripped up and
> used as somebody's pawn.

And pawns are in danger, right?

> It really could happen to any of us
> -- and does.

And similarly!--- When murderers aren't put to death, many will survive incompetent management and administration of incarceration to enjoy parole from short sentences, after which they'll kill again.

Which pattern —wrongful execution or insufficient prosecution— is the source of more brutal killing in the United States?


There's no position on this that doesn't have bad outcomes.

Crid, you assume that the death penalty is a deterrent to people who commit horrible crimes. It has not been shown to be.

Next?

End official immunity, and you'll see this sort of prosecutorial misconduct end fast. How many prosecutors do you think would be willing to risk felony charges and prison to get this sort of scummy, fraudulent conviction?

This is not an isolated incident. The fallout from the fraud at the FBI lab will continue for years. Power corrupts. Unchallenged power corrupts worse.

> you assume that the death penalty is a deterrent
> to people who commit horrible crimes

What on Earth makes you think so?

No, really, why do think my concern is deterrence?

Aw, c'mon. It's Texas.

They're very adamant that they have their own republic.

Just seal off the border and be happy with 49 states.

From what I've heard, most pro-death-penalty types are not interested in deterrence.

But you'd think people WOULD be more interested in how death-row cases often cost a lot more than life-term cases, due to appeals, etc.

But you'd think people WOULD be more interested in how death-row cases often cost a lot more than life-term cases, due to appeals, etc.

Posted by: lenona at August 4, 2014 8:17 AM

It is of interest to me, but not the way death penalty opponents think it should be. The appeals process is expensive and lengthy because we don't want to execute a bunch of innocent people.

Most the people with life sentences for horrible crimes have entered into plea bargains, which tends to cut off the appeals process, so as a metric, or an argument it is meaningless.

The cost-of-appeals argument isn't a very good one. Lifers file as many or more motions and appeals as death row inmates do. You just don't hear about it because it isn't newsworthy; if the appeal fails, the impact to the lifer is nil.

> Just seal off the border and be
> happy with 49 states.

Your federal government would like nothing more.

...But...

Also, while I recognize Amy's (righteous) impulse to sarcasm in the title of this blog post...

The overwhelming majority of innocent people who're executed in the United States are, in fact, accidentally convicted. The machinery of of our CJ system wobbles and twitches, but you'd be hard-pressed to demonstrate that most of them had made particular enemies in our power structures.

But the tremendous number of killers lightly punished and then freed to kill again do so by the willful enthusiasm of a players in the courts and the electorate who're disinclined to see people as they are.

So there's that.

That last one was so good, I'm going to do it again without the typos, maybe tighten it up a little....

Also, while I recognize Amy's (righteous) impulse to sarcasm in the title of this blog post...

The overwhelming majority of innocent people executed in the United States are, in fact, accidentally convicted: Our criminal justice wobbles and twitches, but you'd be hard-pressed to demonstrate that most had suffered by specific wheels in our machinery.

But the much larger number of lightly-punished murderers freed to kill again are sent rolling by the willful enthusiasm of players in the courts (and the electorate) who're disinclined to see human nature as it really is.

C'mon! That was good!


Eight hours later, Amy still won't identify any expression about deterrence in my comments.


But since she mentioned it, consider that Amy's claim, introduced for whatever reason, might be flatly wrong:

According to roughly a dozen recent studies, executions save lives. For each inmate put to death, the studies say, 3 to 18 murders are prevented.

People loves teh studies 'round these parts, right?

"The overwhelming majority of innocent people who're executed in the United States are, in fact, accidentally convicted."

Please cite your source. And define "accidentally convicted."

"The machinery of of our CJ system wobbles and twitches, but you'd be hard-pressed to demonstrate that most of them had made particular enemies in our power structures."

What?

"Hey, sorry you've been wrongly convicted and are about to be executed, but it's not personal. At least you haven't done anything to piss off anyone in particular."

> Please cite your source.

See this, then go here, noting table 2, "Recidivism by Offense," wherein murder is listed at 52%. (Youth convictions are apparently invisible to statisticians.)

> "Hey, sorry you've been..."

It's telling that teenage sarcasm is a recurring voice for this discussion. Its distortions continue:

> At least you haven't done anything
> to piss off anyone in particular.

If you, Michelle, have identified a common fault in these procedures, something discernible from INDIVIDUAL OUTCOMES, then golly, we'll all be eager to hear about it. Like, if you know a judge who just wants to kill a certain kind of person? Yeah.... Speak up.

But again, to whine that jurisprudential rulings are often unpleasant, and unconvincing at a distance, conveys no seriousness.




(PS- Do you know why Amy thought I was talking about deterrence?)

(Also- It bugs me when adults [attorneys?] use quotation marks promiscuously... It's like that time you told me you'd "stolen the Social Security checks" from your "elderly" landlady for "two or three years.")

Crid - you made the claim, you back it up.

And because I'm sporting - a general fault in judicial procedures that is associated with wrongful conviction - judge and jury reliance on eyewitness testimony (what to allow in court is a procedural matter):

http://www.innocenceproject.org/understand/Eyewitness-Misidentification.php

Done. Besides, I'm not sure how Amy (or you, or any of us) would be much less troubled by other sentences and outcomes which so grievous derail lives... Imprisonment, etc.

and

Could you put it in a sentence? (A blog sentence, not the verdict-kind.) If you have a golden new principle for adjudication, then again, we're all really looking forward to hearing about it.

Crid: points well made.
In addition: why do any of you think "the death penalty" is just the execution itself? Are you really that stupid?
There will be a conviction, then sentencing, then appeal of the conviction, then appeal of the sentencing, all in a system that charges by the hour and not by the result.

Go ahead. Tell me the possibility of a pistol shot to the forehead for raping some girl would be no big deal to you.

Deterrence depends on certainty, which squeamish do-gooders have removed from the system.

Five sentences (and judicious use of quotes):

“The most common element in all wrongful convictions later overturned by DNA evidence has been eyewitness misidentification. Misleading lineup methods have been used for decades without serious scrutiny. Now is the time for change.

Despite solid proof of the inaccuracy of traditional methods – and the availability of simple measures to reform them – eyewitness IDs remain among the most common and compelling evidence brought against criminal defendants.”

Source: The Innocence Project

“The Innocence Project was founded in 1992 by Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University to assist prisoners who could be proven innocent through DNA testing. To date, more than 300 people in the United States have been exonerated by DNA testing, including 18 who served time on death row.”

Sorry, thought this had died.

> Deterrence depends on certainty,
> which squeamish do-gooders have removed
> from the system.

Well, yes, but I'm OK with that. A decent society is always going to move slowly with this ultimate sanction, to make sure a judge isn't eliminating a son-in-law's competitor in the farm utensil business, and that a prosecutor isn't getting back at the boy who told her she was fat in high school.

Read the Hitchens essay. When prosecutions are pushed through all that red tape, they're none the less tawdry in their (literal) execution.

I hear ya, really, I do: I really like how McVeigh's name fell off America's tongue in the summer of 2001. But there's more evil in the world than there is resolve to fight it through administrative means.

> Now is the time for change.

Good luck. This isn't a problem with American jurisprudence. When people say "I saw this, others will always listen.

The ping-ping of flattering articles about Scheck over the last few years has often sounded like a melody of atonement. Because of that thing.