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Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon

cnn.com

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Re: Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon

#121

Post by frosted-flakes »

coldtea wrote: post #25
momothereal wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the country in question has a good track record of punishing judges, prosecutors, and LEA, then it would be abolishing the death penalty _de facto_, as no-one would take that sort of risk over just imprisoning the person for life. If the country does not have a good track record, it doesn't really change anything.

You could punishes judges even for harsh senteces (of people later exonerated), doesn't have to be just about the death penalty. And to make it more balanced, you could also punish them for exonerating someone later found guilty (with the available evicence at the first trial re-examined). Just rough ideas, which might not work at all, but still, as it is judges have no skin in the game (not even their reputation, so…

No one would ever want to be a judge then. And your second paragraph is very much in conflict with the tenet that everyone is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Re: Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon

#122

Post by hedora »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #50
gbrown wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You asked for absurd, so:

Eye witness testimony is only slightly more reliable as waving purple LEDs around while chanting long words and rambling off conspiracy theories. (Which is apparently now an acceptable form of criminal investigation in the US).

Re: Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon

#123

Post by bryanrasmussen »

GavinMcG wrote: post #105
reducesuffering wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone want to summarize the argument of these 14 states that isn't "Yes, we as a society locked up an innocent for 30 years, but now that they're free we don't owe them anything"..?

Why would they need an argument? Politics isn't about who has the better argument. It's just that no one in those states has (so far) had the skill, energy, and resources to organize political change on the issue.

the legal argument in the U.S for not giving compensation (as I recall) tends to be you should only be compensated if there was legal irregularities (cough, cough) that resulted in your incarceration - for example falsification of evidence, withholding evidence by the police, forced confessions etc.

So if things were fair and followed correctly and you were by mistake locked up that's too bad, regrettable but not the state's fault and as such the state does not need to compensate you.

Re: Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon

#124

Post by gjsman-1000 »

krisoft wrote: post #93
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Arguably, the torture of prison makes it worse than execution in many cases." This. Whenever somebody says we shouldn't abolish the death penalty, I ask them how it would feel to be locked in a cage for 23 hours a day for up to 60 years (which in most Supermax prisons for people who committed atrocious crimes, is very much the case). If they admit that would be torturous, I then point out that the death penalty is d…

What a weird argument for the death penalty. If you worry about this aspect surely you can just ask the convict if they prefer to stay in prison or if they prefer to die. And not in a philosophical thought experiment way, but in the most direct way possible: “You have been found a very bad egg by the rules of the area you are in. We decided to never let you out again. Since this decision you have been in this facilit…

"You have been found a very bad egg by the rules of the area you are in."

If a person is being sentenced to death, this is a ridiculous statement and it betrays your worldview. It implies that they are only being put to death because of the rules that somebody came up with, rather than for having done things that are objectively, unspeakably, bad.

You don't get the death penalty for stealing purses at Walmart, protesting in the streets, or even killing somebody. You get it for unspeakable crimes that are far more broadly condemned than just the "rules of the area." You get it for bombing planes, child molestation, genocide. People that society should not pity as having a good heart in there somewhere.

These are people, who, frankly, we shouldn't sympathize with. We shouldn't feel bad that they are being put to death as if that is some miscarriage of justice. We should put them to death humanely, quickly upon conviction beyond a reasonable doubt, and resign that justice has been done the same way you would a rabid dog. You don't hate the dog or seek revenge upon it, but you know it must be done for the safety of everyone.

Re: Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon

#125

Post by megous »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #72
staunch wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Execution absolutely guarantees that the criminal will not hurt anyone ever again. In prison, criminals can still hurt prison guards and other prisoners. They can also escape or be freed by mistake. There is a clearly benefit in terms of risk to innocent people. There are certainly innocent people that have been spared harm or death by virtue of executions. I don't view execution as punishment or revenge. I view i…

"Arguably, the torture of prison makes it worse than execution in many cases." This. Whenever somebody says we shouldn't abolish the death penalty, I ask them how it would feel to be locked in a cage for 23 hours a day for up to 60 years (which in most Supermax prisons for people who committed atrocious crimes, is very much the case). If they admit that would be torturous, I then point out that the death penalty is d…

Sounds like a false dichotomy. It's not like the only two options are cage vs death penalty.

Re: Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon

#126

Post by beerandt »

GavinMcG wrote: post #113
beerandt wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't sound like much of a "human right" to me, if a maximum sentence can be extended by a parole board.

What if it was rephrased as an indefinite sentence, but a minimum of 21 years? (If the law doesn't permit a longer minimum, then 21 years is the "maximum sentence" in that there cannot be a longer mandatory period imposed.)

Yeah- I mean I get that's what happening here. It's just weird to me to consider it a "right."

I just don't see how it's fundamentally any better than the US system of minimum and maximum sentences, with some possibly some provisions for early parole reviewed every year or two after some portion "X" of the sentence has been served.

Re: Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon

#127

Post by hwillis »

rhino369 wrote: post #26
endymi0n wrote: post #3

> 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…

I don’t know anything about the specific case, but often DNA from someone else would be totally irrelevant. If I murder someone with my kitchen knife, my wife and her fathers DNA will be on the murder weapon. If you buy a gun from someone and then go shoot someone with it, it might have the sellers DNA on it. So it’s sometimes the case that DNA can’t really create reasonable doubt.

The presumption was that the items would have Lee's DNA on them and they did not.

Re: Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon

#128

Post by beerandt »

krisoft wrote: post #93
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Arguably, the torture of prison makes it worse than execution in many cases." This. Whenever somebody says we shouldn't abolish the death penalty, I ask them how it would feel to be locked in a cage for 23 hours a day for up to 60 years (which in most Supermax prisons for people who committed atrocious crimes, is very much the case). If they admit that would be torturous, I then point out that the death penalty is d…

What a weird argument for the death penalty. If you worry about this aspect surely you can just ask the convict if they prefer to stay in prison or if they prefer to die. And not in a philosophical thought experiment way, but in the most direct way possible: “You have been found a very bad egg by the rules of the area you are in. We decided to never let you out again. Since this decision you have been in this facilit…

Well now you're just devising your own methods of psychological torture.

Re: Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon

#129

Post by bsanr2 »

ta988 wrote: post #73
t0mas88 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Train police to de-escalate and avoid police violence at all costs instead of the US approach where a traffic stop can involve pointing your gun at the suspect...

I've seen part of police training in a big city and was impressed. They have a good portion of their training already on all the different methods of deescalation. With simulators (I tried them it is pretty impressive and immersive), role-play and so on. My guess is that the problem is after training.

I ran a simulator system for a couple of years for a military law course. The idea was to give those in the course first-hand experience with ROE/RUF concerns through the eyes of the people they'd be writing ROE/RUF for.

The scenarios presented were laughable, badly-acted and completely unrealistic. Worse, every single one ended, by default, with the suspect pulling out a gun and shooting at the user. All of them. This is, of course, completely counter to reality.

One could say that the issue is then the quality of these systems, but the fact that, apparently, it has been a viable business for going on a decade shows me that the issue isn't being taken seriously be their customers - that is, police departments and their trainers. The issue is, in fact, the institution as a whole. They're fundamentally incapable of reforming themselves.

Re: Four years after a man was executed, someone else’s DNA found on murder weapon

#130

Post by hedora »

themgt wrote: post #38

This case has been so poorly reported by the mainstream media. Just going to quote a couple other sources about the case and Ledell Lee. AK Supreme Court[1]: At approximately 10:50 a.m. on the morning of the murder, Katherine Williams, the victim's mother, received a phone call from her daughter, who lived some four or five houses away. A man had just knocked on the victim's door, asked if her husband was home, and i…

Thanks for the explanation. I was about to say everything you mentioned was circumstantial: the victim said he’d left, so someone seeing him enter and leave adds nothing.

I think you buried the lede:

> They even found moderate support for his DNA on the murder weapon.

Assuming the weapon was an old tool, it would be suspicious if there wasn’t DNA from third parties on it.

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