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Texas death row inmate at mercy of supreme court, and junk science

theguardian.com

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Re: Texas death row inmate at mercy of supreme court, and junk science

#41

Post by [deleted] »

peyton wrote: post #38
dimal wrote: post #34

I’m always confused why conservatives tend to support the death penalty. The conservative ethos is to reduce the power of the state to prevent abuse, but giving the state the right to kill a citizen clearly goes against that. How can you mistrust the state in almost every aspect of society, yet trust it to only kill people that “deserve” it?

I think most people would be in favor of more protections. But even Socrates argued for the death penalty. Upholding the norm of proportionality in Western philosophy isn’t generally seen as abuse.

[deleted]

Re: Texas death row inmate at mercy of supreme court, and junk science

#42

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #20
Workaccount2 wrote: post #12

I'm always bothered by how doctor's word is always taken as gospel. Anyone who's gone through the medical merry-go-round knows that doctors opinions on the same set of symptoms can be all over the place, some even outright idiotic.

Folks identified the dad as weird and in over his head, so untrustworthy and guilty. This isn't isolated, it's the norm. So, for 30 years or so the medical community had this voodoo DX to justify locking up social outcasts. And they seem completely OK with having done so. The DX sort of is not accepted anymore. But, the article describes a list of other voodoo sciences that demonstrate something remains very broken i…

That could all be true, but folks also testified they personally witnessed him violently shaking at least one kid.

You can be against junk science, but entertain the likely possibility he also did it.

Re: Texas death row inmate at mercy of supreme court, and junk science

#43

Post by lapcat »

peyton wrote: post #38
dimal wrote: post #34

I’m always confused why conservatives tend to support the death penalty. The conservative ethos is to reduce the power of the state to prevent abuse, but giving the state the right to kill a citizen clearly goes against that. How can you mistrust the state in almost every aspect of society, yet trust it to only kill people that “deserve” it?

I think most people would be in favor of more protections. But even Socrates argued for the death penalty. Upholding the norm of proportionality in Western philosophy isn’t generally seen as abuse.

> But even Socrates argued for the death penalty.

This is a gross misunderstanding. Socrates was sentenced to death for "corrupting the youth" in a sham trial. Some friends of Socrates offered to smuggle him out of Athens and escape his death sentence, but Socrates argued against that, for various reasons.

There's no evidence that Socrates supported and promoted the death penalty in the abstract.

Re: Texas death row inmate at mercy of supreme court, and junk science

#44

Post by brookst »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #42
unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Folks identified the dad as weird and in over his head, so untrustworthy and guilty. This isn't isolated, it's the norm. So, for 30 years or so the medical community had this voodoo DX to justify locking up social outcasts. And they seem completely OK with having done so. The DX sort of is not accepted anymore. But, the article describes a list of other voodoo sciences that demonstrate something remains very broken i…

That could all be true, but folks also testified they personally witnessed him violently shaking at least one kid. You can be against junk science, but entertain the likely possibility he also did it.

You can also entertain the possibility that he did it, while still wanting a justice system that insists on absolute proof of guilt before killing someone.

Re: Texas death row inmate at mercy of supreme court, and junk science

#45

Post by flangola7 »

jncfhnb wrote: post #15

The most bonkers thing here to me is giving a man a death sentence because of a believed shaken baby death that he promptly took to the hospital.

That is in no way evidence against it being murder. Abusers do that kind of thing all the time.

Re: Texas death row inmate at mercy of supreme court, and junk science

#46

Post by brookst »

lapcat wrote: post #43
peyton wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people would be in favor of more protections. But even Socrates argued for the death penalty. Upholding the norm of proportionality in Western philosophy isn’t generally seen as abuse.

> But even Socrates argued for the death penalty. This is a gross misunderstanding. Socrates was sentenced to death for "corrupting the youth" in a sham trial. Some friends of Socrates offered to smuggle him out of Athens and escape his death sentence, but Socrates argued against that, for various reasons. There's no evidence that Socrates supported and promoted the death penalty in the abstract.

This. And even if Socrates wrote an eloquent argument for the death penalty, he would be the first to reject the use of his name as an argument unto itself.

Re: Texas death row inmate at mercy of supreme court, and junk science

#47

Post by beerandt »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #23

The way death row inmates are treated is arguably a reason to be against death row. There was also a case where a person on death row couldn’t present exculpatory evidence to prove his innocence because his last appeals lawyer didn’t do it. The Supreme Court literally decided you can prove you have evidence that proves your innocence, that you were done dirty by an incompetent lawyer, it doesn’t matter, you should st…

>you can prove you have evidence that proves your innocence,

No. This isn't a case of OJ finding the Real Killers(tm). It wasn't even "new" evidence.

>Ramirez appealed to federal court where his federal public defenders uncovered evidence of intellectual disability and extensive childhood abuse that hadn't been presented at his initial trial.

The ruling only overturned (the 9th circuit precedent) whether the 'default' position of the appeals court should be to accept/consider new arguments not made at trial.

It was not suddenly discovered that the convicted might be intellectually disabled.

Which is itself is still quite the leap from suddenly discovering 'exonerating evidence'.

Re: Texas death row inmate at mercy of supreme court, and junk science

#48

Post by rdedev »

Spivak wrote: post #36
SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #23

The way death row inmates are treated is arguably a reason to be against death row. There was also a case where a person on death row couldn’t present exculpatory evidence to prove his innocence because his last appeals lawyer didn’t do it. The Supreme Court literally decided you can prove you have evidence that proves your innocence, that you were done dirty by an incompetent lawyer, it doesn’t matter, you should st…

It's so frustrating because in the twisted universe where Thomas lives the ruling makes sense. To him justice is an algorithm that produces an outcome and only needs some minimum threshold of "overall the justice system locks up roughly the people we think it ought to" and all the appeals and after-the-fact proving your innocence gets in the way of the efficiency and to him, the effectiveness, of that algorithm. And…

But those two are not the same right ? In elections everyone involved (candidates and voters) have agreed to the system. If they feel the system is not working as such they could always check the results. Sometimes something may pop up and we update the results. This is not the case in the justice system you mentioned above where it's not possible to correct any mistakes after the fact

Re: Texas death row inmate at mercy of supreme court, and junk science

#49

Post by hirundo »

ceejayoz wrote: post #27
jdechko wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sure the dozens of TV shows don’t help this either. Law and Order is never wrong and their science and methods are flawless. Obviously I’m being sarcastic, but I think it clouds the jury’s thought process

Yup. Known as the CSI effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSI_effect

I was on a jury last month, an assault and battery case in which the identification of the rusty-colored substance on the grip of a handgun could easily make a big difference. We convicted on the assault and acquitted on the battery because of the lack of the evidence, though I think most of us thought the defendant was guilty of both.

This was the second try at this case after a prior jury hung, but the two years between the charge and the second trial were not enough to get _any_ results back on the substance. Apparently the lead time required is such that they didn't bother to try. Here's how they explained that: "This isn't CSI."

Re: Texas death row inmate at mercy of supreme court, and junk science

#50

Post by lapcat »

dbmikus wrote: post #37
dimal wrote: post #34

I’m always confused why conservatives tend to support the death penalty. The conservative ethos is to reduce the power of the state to prevent abuse, but giving the state the right to kill a citizen clearly goes against that. How can you mistrust the state in almost every aspect of society, yet trust it to only kill people that “deserve” it?

The two party system oversimplifies things, so you end up with "small government" and "traditional government" in the same bucket.

Exactly. This needs to be said more. The political party duopoly in the US and some other countries belies a vast range of political beliefs in the population. If you look closely at each party, there are many competing factions within, often vehemently opposed.

The words "conservative", "liberal", "right", "left", etc., are practically meaningless, and I'm old enough to have seen them change over the decades, sometimes radically. They're nothing but trendy labels.

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