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

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

#151

Post by asoneth »

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…

If you think life in prison is more inhumane than death then I could be convinced that prisoners with a life sentence should be allowed to voluntarily choose euthanasia.

If you are concerned about cost then it's worth noting that execution (in the US) is more expensive than life in prison.

That leaves the "sense of justice". Given the high likelihood that the government already has killed innocent people, and the likelihood that it will continue to do so, that seems insufficient to me.

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

#152

Post by beerandt »

aaron-santos wrote: post #96
traloid wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is justice. Every murderer should be executed by the state IMO.

Justice involves the victims not the state. The Kantian idea of justice should have died out centuries ago.

Judicially sanctioned revenge killing as a civil remedy is an interesting thought exercise, though.

...if your argument is that the victim and not the State is entitled to justice.

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

#153

Post by slver »

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…

Being surprised at any travesty of justice means you still believe "justice the meme", and "justice the reality" have any hope of being similar to each other.

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

#154

Post by raincom »

Legalese: "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."

This is how the justice system hides behind its sins: Judges/Officials/Prosecutors say "there is no blood on my hands", Lee was "lawfully executed". Sidestepping the question.

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

#155

Post by kingsuper20 »

beerandt wrote: post #148
kingsuper20 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder how this argument would be applied to police murders of innocents. How do we deal with that? Realistically I think you'd have to drastically lower the perceived risk of a public interaction to the police. As long as they think they are going to get hurt, they'll feel the need to get in front of the problem.

This angle always amuses me, because while there's some truth to it, it means that raising "public awareness" of the issue is, in fact, making the issue worse. Which might be true, but that also lays at least some blame on the activists/ fear mongers. But also, it's just a different type of victim blaming. Anytime perception is allowed to be blamed, logic goes out the window. The same excuse was (is) used against min…

Or it could be as simple as improving physical security for police.

Put an Ironman suit on a cop and he isn't going to much care if the potential perp is carrying a knife.

It's a weird gig (street patrol) and it's hard to have a strong opinion on it without actually being a cop or going out on numerous ride-alongs. Naturally, it's easy to come up with 'solutions' behind the safety of a screen.

One thing that brought that home to me is having several friends who are retired COs (Correctional Officers) from the California state system and several friends who are released felons. One thing their stories taught me is that people who are uninvolved in those systems don't know a thing about it and have nearly useless theories on the way things-oughta-be.

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

#156

Post by krisoft »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #124
krisoft wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, protes…

> 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.

No betrayal there. That is my worldview. Cultures through history varied a lot on which crimes were deemed worthy of capital punishment. Even now as we speak there are people who has been sentenced to death because someone saw them tear pages out of a book. Where I am from that is either not a crime or minor property damage. So clearly we as humans can’t agree on what is “objectively bad”. Even if we argue that those other cultures got it wrong and we have it right on who is objectively bad our processes are not deterministic. The same person if tried again with a different jurry might get acquited. Not always, and not and not every case, but often enough to undermine the notion that we are dealing with some kind of objective badness.

> it must be done for the safety of everyone

The idea that we have these dangerous criminals who cannot be contained safely in any other way than by killing them is a comic book plotpoint not reality. We have the technology and the resources to keep any humans safely contained if we choose to. We can even do this in a non-cruel way if that is what we want to do.

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

#157

Post by darksaints »

mikestew wrote: post #86
bananapear wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This 19 wooden tire thumper lets you know if your tires are fully pressurized by making a thump as it hits the rubber. Just swing the thumper and listen for the sound. If your tires are low in pressure it makes a different sound. Save time checking tire pressure on your rig with this wooden tire thumper. Is this some kind of nonsense to avoid marketing it as a weapon, or do people really use these to check tyre pre…

Yes, if one views the package marketing at your local truck stop (and probably not at your family-friendly Pilot) it is quite obvious that it is a versatile tool, and you might even use it on occasion to check tires. But, yes, it is manufactured and market to thump one thing: someone’s skull.

Tire thumpers are an actual thing that truck drivers use to check tire pressure. Unlike cars, you can't just visually inspect tire pressure on empty trucks, because dual-mounted tires with one tire completely deflated will still "look" normal. Checking with a small bat is something so routine, I would wager on you never finding a truck anywhere that doesn't have one readily accessible in the cab, and that tire thumpers are used to thump tires over thumping humans 10000000:1.

Source: I paid for college as a class A truck driver, and I used one to check every single dual-mounted tire every single day.

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

#158

Post by darksaints »

riffic wrote: post #80
bananapear wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This 19 wooden tire thumper lets you know if your tires are fully pressurized by making a thump as it hits the rubber. Just swing the thumper and listen for the sound. If your tires are low in pressure it makes a different sound. Save time checking tire pressure on your rig with this wooden tire thumper. Is this some kind of nonsense to avoid marketing it as a weapon, or do people really use these to check tyre pre…

it's absolutely a weapon.

Anything can be a weapon if you use it as one. That doesn't mean they are meant to be weapons.

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

#159

Post by awb »

hwillis wrote: post #127
rhino369 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Would wearing gloves prevent DNA from appearing on a wooden handle?

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

#160

Post by gbrown »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #132
hedora wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Is this in reference to something? I did not ask for absurd. I asked what they thought was absurd.

You got your answer: seriously, just do a cursory search about the reliability of eyewitness testimony.
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