Before I opened the link I was 99% that the article was about an Afro American and ... Bingo!. Sad.
Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon
41–50 of 206 posts
Re: Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon
#42Death is an immutable punishment, that really should be all the logic needed to dissuade people from supporting the death penalty. Locking an innocent person up for n number of years is a massive injustice but at least the person can be freed and compensated.
>at least the person can be freed and compensated. I don't think most innocent people who are freed get any compensation in the U.S.
Do all states have compensation statutes?
The federal government, the District of Columbia, and 36 states have compensation statutes of some form. The following 14 states do not: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Wyoming.
https://innocenceproject.org/compensating-wrongly-convicted/
Re: Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon
#43The Innocence Project and ACLU said five of the six hairs tested for mitochondrial DNA excluded Lee as the source. Lee could not be "excluded as a potential source" in one of the hairs.
https://www.thv11.com/article/news/crime/ledell-lee-dna-test...
Lee's counsel had argued that they should be allowed to locate crime scene evidence collected in 1993, including a single hair and a Converse shoe with a pinhead-sized spot of human blood on it, for modern DNA testing.
Re: Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon
#44Death is an immutable punishment, that really should be all the logic needed to dissuade people from supporting the death penalty. Locking an innocent person up for n number of years is a massive injustice but at least the person can be freed and compensated.
>at least the person can be freed and compensated. I don't think most innocent people who are freed get any compensation in the U.S.
Even if they don't get any compensation (and they should get one imho), being free is still better than being dead.
Re: Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon
#45The death penalty should be abolished, end of discussion. If even a single innocent person is murdered , then an obscene and heinous crime has been committed by the state.
How much of your salary are you willing to pay to house violent criminals for the rest of their life? Let's not forget that someone else was also murdered too
The idea that any person is immutably a "criminal" is as passe as the xenophobic belief that certain ethnic groups are innately violent, untrustworthy, or simpleminded. It's a failed ideology that justifies selective dehumanization.
And conversely, how much value in contracted services performed by potentially wrongly incarcerated people performing un- or under-compensated labor are you willing to accept? If they're paying for the privilege of their own imprisonment, it should at least include rehabilitation.
Re: Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon
#46The death penalty should be abolished, end of discussion. If even a single innocent person is murdered , then an obscene and heinous crime has been committed by the state.
It should be applied only when the evidence is physical and without doubts (eyewitnesses are insufficient).
Re: Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon
#47> In an effort to prevent his execution, Lee's attorney sought in the post-conviction appeals process to finally have the DNA evidence in the case tested for the first time. [...] Their request was denied. "The reasoning given by the judge was it wouldn't matter, that there were three people who saw him at or near that neighborhood on that day and time and honestly the DNA just wouldn't matter," Short said. Wow. Like…
For context, here’s the other evidence the judge is referring to: > Asked about the new DNA evidence, Rutledge repeatedly insisted Lee was "lawfully executed" and pointed to the testimony of an eyewitness who purportedly saw Lee enter Reese's home that day and then leave, "erratically," 20 minutes later. There’s also more context here for anyone interested in the case: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ledell_Lee As fo…
A "tire thumper" is often a wooden bat.
https://www.amazon.com/RoadPro-RPTT-1-Thumper-19-Inches-Asso...
Re: Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon
#48Concerning DNA testing in general. Recently there was a case where the Finnish police arrested a person as a suspect for a robbery of a convenience store on basis of DNA evidence: the robber had dropped a plastic glove, presumably to hide fingerprints, on the floor of the store. Officers isolated DNA from the glove, searched archives, found a match with a person who had had some minor offense years prior, and brought…
Or this woman: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_of_Heilbronn
Re: Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
How much of your salary are you willing to pay to house violent criminals for the rest of their life? Let's not forget that someone else was also murdered too
The idea that any person is immutably a "criminal" is as passe as the xenophobic belief that certain ethnic groups are innately violent, untrustworthy, or simpleminded. It's a failed ideology that justifies selective dehumanization. And conversely, how much value in contracted services performed by potentially wrongly incarcerated people performing un- or under-compensated labor are you willing to accept? If they're…
I don't want to rehabilitate someone who violently murders people. If they took life cruelly, then losing the effective use of their own life is just.
Re: Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
In this case, the rationale was that there is no DNA evidence that would outweigh the eye witness testimony.
Which is an absurd statement on its face
Which part do you think is absurd?
That eye witness data can be considered or that the DNA evidence is irrelevant?
I don't support the death penalty but I see the judge's point. Most DNA evidence isn't very useful and rarely as damning or exculpatory as people think.