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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

#101

Post by [deleted] »

dsego wrote: post #84
spamizbad wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because the purpose of the death penalty is to function as a sort of secular human sacrifice, to ward off evil-doers possibly doing bad things, due to a belief that deep down bad guys are rational actors and will choose not to do commit capital murder based on punishment.

It's retributive justice, it's not a deterrent. To quote a post I recently found resonating with me: "Look, we don’t necessarily hang murderers to deter other people from committing the same offence. We kill them simply because the punishment has to carry the same weight as the offence. The family of the murderer must go through the same anguish and pain that the murder victim’s family went through. The killer has to…

[deleted]

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

#102

Post by rolph »

dmoy wrote: post #56
gus_massa wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original Law and Order was good, not perfect, but quite good. They tried to follow the procedures and most of the proof were real. Each story was original. (IIRC. IANAL. And perhaps a few more disclaimers.) The spin-offs are bad. The suspects are interrogated until they confess, and nobody cares if they have no lawyer or they use dubios evidence.

It was embellished a little, and there were some procedural flaws, but it was an order of magnitude more realistic than subsequent L&O shows. For the cops, prosecutors, and defense attorneys, the show doesn't give the proper sense of immense caseload. Each episode feels like they're focused 100% on a single thing, when in reality they're probably juggling dozens, and stretched thin. The cop side of things in L&O is f…

L&O does seem to showcase the attitude of laws as inconveniences to be sidestepped, by way of sophistry, and conduct worse than the defendant.

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

#104

Post by anonobviously4 »

epicureanideal wrote: post #69
qingcharles wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's often very, very, very hard to introduce new evidence of your innocence after trial. Trial is the point that you show all available evidence to the jury. In Illinois you can attempt to present your evidence only after you have exhausted all of your regular appeal routes (appellate court, state supreme court, SCOTUS, state habeas corpus, fed habeas -- there are 11 levels here first) which can take a decade.…

I'm completely shocked that the "defund the police" movement was where the progressive activists chose to dedicate their attention. Whereas issues like you mention above, and trial reform in general, and prison system reform in general, would have wide bipartisan support. It really makes me suspicious why activists and the media are not advocating for the things 90% of people would agree with. Is the other stuff just…

> the things 90% of people would agree with

Firstly, 90% dont agree with trial reform. Most conservatives and wealthy "liberals" do not care, but they are not the ones who suffer.

Secondly, "defund the police" helps solves trial reform by reducing the number of people pushed into trial on questionable grounds. Take this for example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37431962 -- this type of AI-driven precog system would not be funded if we defunded police departments. That means less people arrested/tried on pseudo-science grounds.

Similarly, less police means the police have to focus on the highest impact issues, rather than trying to go on dragnets and putting angent provaceteurs into the community to literally manufacture criminals.

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

#105

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

couchand wrote: post #91
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really a judge's role to go out and find witnesses. Defendants can, but as the article describes, "shaken baby syndrome" was official guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics at the time.

Right, if one party puts forward an unchallenged expert witness, sure, there's not much a judge can do. It sounds like the original case was like that. It sounds like the appeal is NOT like that, the judge having seemingly ignored the very reasonable challenge to the original witness testimony.

Appeals aren’t meant to be a redo of the original trial. The judge ruled that he didn’t prove he was innocent, or that a reasonable juror couldn’t have voted to convict him if they saw his new evidence.

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

#106

Post by goodpoint »

dsego wrote: post #84
spamizbad wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because the purpose of the death penalty is to function as a sort of secular human sacrifice, to ward off evil-doers possibly doing bad things, due to a belief that deep down bad guys are rational actors and will choose not to do commit capital murder based on punishment.

It's retributive justice, it's not a deterrent. To quote a post I recently found resonating with me: "Look, we don’t necessarily hang murderers to deter other people from committing the same offence. We kill them simply because the punishment has to carry the same weight as the offence. The family of the murderer must go through the same anguish and pain that the murder victim’s family went through. The killer has to…

> The family of the murderer must go through the same anguish and pain

How are family members guilty by association? Did they even chose to be somebody's brother, daughter, etc?

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

#107

Post by LargeTomato »

lozenge wrote: post #57
Spivak wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's called "just"ice, not "systemish". Getting the right outcome is meant to be a core goal of the system. Besides, there are many legal reasonings that would allow the process to give the right answer - that innocent people should not be killed. Thomas chose to find a different reasoning instead.

No. Human legal systems will never be truly just. They are a reflection of ourselves and we are imperfect. We can only do our best.

In this case the guy got to go all the way to the top court. That's great. That sounds like a good system so far. So at very least it's not rotten to the core. Thomas is unfit and disappointingly partisan, but this appointment came from the executive branch, not the justice system itself. The justice system was set up so the executive branch can check the judiciary. In this case the executive Branch's actions really messed up, but I don't think it's fair to criticize the justice system.

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

#108

Post by lisper »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #28
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…

One of the other death row inmates mentioned in the article as having failed the junk science law, Kosoul Chanthakoummane, was partly convicted for hypnosis induced testimony. The appeal response on calling it junk science was, paraphrased, "hypnosis induced testimony was known to be bogus in ~2005, when your trial was. You should have argued it then." That alone is terrible. But to make that bullshit even worse, Tex…

Why? Shaken Baby Syndrome is a real thing.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/shaken-baby-s...

[UPDATE] To those of you downvoting me, would you kindly explain why? It seems like a reasonable question to me.

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

#109

Post by edrxty »

yieldcrv wrote: post #99
Scarblac wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's why it's horrible. The first family is miserable, so in return you make another family miserable as well. Just more misery, not good for anybody. We consider murderers the lowest of the low, therefore we stoop to the same level. That's the thinking? In the US, the same people who think government should not have much power, are against taxes, think that abortion is a kind of murder and should be illegal, t…

[flagged]

Are you victim blaming...slaves?

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

#110

Post by mcpackieh »

dsego wrote: post #84
spamizbad wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because the purpose of the death penalty is to function as a sort of secular human sacrifice, to ward off evil-doers possibly doing bad things, due to a belief that deep down bad guys are rational actors and will choose not to do commit capital murder based on punishment.

It's retributive justice, it's not a deterrent. To quote a post I recently found resonating with me: "Look, we don’t necessarily hang murderers to deter other people from committing the same offence. We kill them simply because the punishment has to carry the same weight as the offence. The family of the murderer must go through the same anguish and pain that the murder victim’s family went through. The killer has to…

Response to the deleted comment: "I genuinely don’t understand this point of view. I get why the victims would want this but why is that a reason for our legal system to adopt it as a guiding principle?"

The pact the government has with people is that the government metes out justice so that people don't try to get it themselves. Some measure of retribution, it doesn't need to be the death penalty, works towards this goal. If people believe the courts will punish a criminal they are less likely to do it themselves, it reduces the risk of vigilante justice. That's a good thing because vigilantes are less discerning about getting the right person and considering extenuating evidence. It's a compromise.

Imagine the government found a way to cure psychopathy with a pill. They catch a serial killer who brutally murdered dozens of people, utterly rehabilitate him with their pill and release him the same day. This might satisfy you and some of the other wise and enlightened commenters in this thread, but many people would not be satisfied with it and people would be more inclined to kill murderers in retribution, since the government no longer punishes them.

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