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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

#151

Post by anon84873628 »

InSteady wrote: post #74
brookst wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

* The daughter was sick from birth with breathing apnea, with bouts causing her to collapse and stop breathing. * Had severe undiagnosed pneumonia. * Was prescribed an opioid medication that is no longer deemed safe for children. * Had diarrhea and a fever of 104F for 5 days prior to her death. How can you not entertain the possibility that her death had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that someone claims a du…

And if I read the article correctly, those claims were made by the girls mother who 1) Lost or relinquished custody to Roberson in the first place 2) Was contradicted by her own sister who said she never observed that type of behavior and that the mother was prone to lying

In any case the conviction doesn't remotely approach the bar of "beyond a reasonable doubt"

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

#152

Post by Racing0461 »

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…

This is the kind of bullshit that makes me against government death penality. If the supreme court can't throw out "administrative procedure" in favor of a "correct ruling", then where does one go next?

Is the only way to get the "correct outcome" a BLM george floyd type protest? It seems like the court system is becoming like getting support from tech companies these days where the only way to get a "normal" level of service/outcome is to start a shitstorm on twitter as the normal support systems doesn't have the approval to make a profit affecting decision.

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

#153

Post by BeFlatXIII »

mcpackieh wrote: post #146
jncfhnb wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And… what exactly is achieved by this sort of justice system? Congrats, you killed some undereducated, desperate parents who fucked up and lost their child.

> And… what exactly is achieved by this sort of justice system? It suppresses the rate of vigilante justice. If the courts can generally do a better job than the vigilantes themselves, then society comes out ahead. If we were to live in a society where parents can abuse their children to death and receive nothing more than a scolding from the state to be more careful in the future, then we'd have a lot more people ki…

If blood feuds become that much of an intractable issue, why not target those regions for fentanyl-powered self-mollification?

That's obviously a galaxy brain argument, but what's to stop someone from going Tim McVeigh over a routine miscarriage of justice?

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

#154

Post by jmyeet »

There is absolutely no justification for the death penalty no matter how you look at it. None.

From a purely economic POV, it makes no sense. Compare the average annual cost per state prison inmate [1] ($22,000 for Texas) to the annual cost of a death row inmate. For example, $90,000 per inmate per year for Nevada [2].

In addition capital cases are significantly more expensive to try. Each Federal execution cost an estimated $1 million [3].

Since 1973, at least 190 people sentenced to death have been exonerated [4]. People exonerated of crimes tend to skew heavily towards minorities, particularly African-American [5][6], which shows it's not really about the severity and certainty of a conviction but instead emotional retribution disproportionately targeted at black people.

The American carceral state is an abject failure and a blight on humanity. We have 4% of the world's population but 25% of the world's priosners. If locking people up worked, this would be the safest country on Earth.

[1]: https://www.vera.org/publications/price-of-prisons-2015-stat...

[2]: https://www.leg.state.nv.us/App/NELIS/REL/76th2011/ExhibitDo...

[3]:https://interrogatingjustice.org/death-sentences/the-cost-of...

[4]: https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/innocence

[5]: https://innocenceproject.org/dna-exonerations-in-the-united-...

[6]: https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/innocence

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

#155

Post by standardUser »

guraf wrote: post #123
lotsofpulp wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Science” is just the process of continuously evaluating and re-evaluating what you know using data and experiments, and changing what you “know” (or your mental model) to align with the new data. What people deify is certain conclusions, for myriad reasons.

Enough of this no true scottsmanship. "Scientific consensus" is taken as gospel by many people. Most on this very board. They don't care to learn how the consensus was reached (usually happens by just ignoring detractors). They just care to feel superior to people outside the consensus because "duh, science".

You want to think it's "taken as gospel", maybe because you have an ax to grind, but the reality is the scientific consensus on most topics is taken as "better than anything else I have access to, or any bullshit I'll make up in my own head". And when it comes time to make a personal decision - do I take the pill or not take the pill - we all have to use the best information we have, which almost all of the time will be the scientific consensus.

Though I'll agree there is a phenomenon that occurs when a vocal group starts criticizing a scientific consensus, usually for obvious political reasons, that causes many people to double-down and express too much rigid faith in that consensus. I don't like that either.

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

#156

Post by luminouslow »

beerandt wrote: post #95
luminouslow wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed the second part: >"Jones also appealed to federal court, where federal investigators found evidence suggesting he was innocent. In both cases, ..."

> found evidence suggesting he was innocent. No, deciding to (not) call an expert witness to present a different theory (that conflicts with the rest of your defense claims) isn't "found evidence". It's strategy. It's the same buyers remorse, no-true-scotsman argument. Case lost, therefore ineffective assistance. The lawyer could have presented a different argument, but didn't. Convicted now wants to make a different…

I didn't know the details of the case or am a lawyer; it just seemed this was what op was talking about. but looking into it the case seems pretty clear cut.

the death sentence is still a barbaric practice.

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

#157

Post by philshem »

Rebuff5007 wrote: post #103

Wow, I did not realize there are easily accessible public records of Texas' current death row inmates: https://www.tdcj.texas.gov/death_row/dr_offenders_on_dr.html Credit to the guardian article for linking this. What a weird world.

For those who received capital punishment, the same site also hosts their last statements. https://www.tdcj.texas.gov/death_row/dr_executed_offenders.h...

It's one of the grimmest open data sets around. And the source of this dataviz from Reddit: https://imgur.com/t61UIgH https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/26rui7/oc_...

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

#158

Post by rossant »

lisper wrote: post #148
rossant wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shaking and child abuse are obviously real things. However, the way to diagnose shaken baby syndrome has been the subject of an ongoing scientific controversy for decades. With several colleagues, we have just published a textbook about this sensitive issue [1]. I've also written about how I, as a neuroscience researcher and software engineer, came into this diagnosis [2]. Finally, an introduction to this fascinating…

OK, but that still doesn't explain the connection between SBS and hypnosis (and Texas for that matter). Is there a particular history of using hypnosis to convict innocent people of shaking babies to death in Texas and impose the death penalty on them? Is this common knowledge? The original comment to which I was responding still makes absolutely no sense to me. And getting downvoted because I asked for clarification…

I don't know anything about hypnosis, but I think the comment you replied too made an analogy between the contested science of SBS, and the unreliability of hypnosis induced testimonies. There are many other scientific methods in criminal law that have been criticized for their poor reliability, yet many of them are still routinely used in courts.

[1] https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2016/09/20/pcast-r...

[2] https://innocenceproject.org/misapplication-of-forensic-scie...

[3] https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/the-problem-wi...

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

#159

Post by slashdev »

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 would make for a good Monty Python sketch.

That’s really a sad state of affairs.

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

#160

Post by redwall_hp »

Scarblac wrote: post #92
dsego wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

> 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, these people are nevertheless fine with government murdering citizens. I don't get it.

It makes perfect sense if you realize that none of those things are rational positions; they're all opinions people arrived at for emotional reasons, while lacking information or the ability to process it.

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