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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

#161

Post by dennis_jeeves2 »

rPlayer6554 wrote: post #62
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.

Society has made a God out of science. Don't get me wrong, science is a fantastic invention and should be taken seriously. Anyone who dismisses science without thought or reason is crazy. But as you saw during the pandemic and through this, we've lost some sense of reason when a flawed human in a white coat says something. We need to take what they say seriously but with a grain of salt that they get things wrong.

>Society has made a God out of science.

With conventional religion somewhat on the wane, science has become the new religion: a unquestioning belief in the experts, just like the way people rarely question the word of the priest/preacher in a traditional religion. There's something innately human which predisposes people to beliefs. One of them being just low IQ, An IQ of hundred does not go very far, for the complex lives that we need lead.

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

#162

Post by beerandt »

lisper wrote: post #131
beerandt wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is, but those claiming psedoscience aren't even claiming that the set of symptoms aren't "real", just that they don't deserve their own label because of the implication. "We can't explain this trio of internal head/brain/eye trauma with lack of corresponding external trauma, but don't you dare make the reasonable claim that shaking a baby can/does nominally cause the symptoms we see when a baby is, in fact, shaken…

Sorry, I am very confused here. The comment I was responding to said: > to make that bullshit even worse, Texas continued to use hypnosis induced testimony until 2021. That is a sentiment with which I sympathize. But then... > It makes me wonder when the last death penalty sentence for "shaken baby syndrome" was in Texas. This I don't get. Shaken baby syndrome is a real thing, and it seems to me that if someone shake…

It's all about labels. To discredit and manipulate.

Because 4th/5th amendment issues aside, if an interrogation or testimony via hypnosis is verifiable, who cares if hypnosis is 'real' or 'junk science'?

If a man shakes a baby and that baby dies, who cares if 'SBS' is 'junk science'? It's still murder.

The label shouldn't automatically validate (or invalidate/discredit) the underlying information/ action/ admission.

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

#163

Post by chipsa »

spamizbad wrote: post #72
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…

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.

The purpose of the justice system is many-fold: One is reform (serve your penance and be better). One is retribution: you did a bad thing, so bad things are going to happen to you. One is deterrence: knowing that you'll get caught, you won't want to spend time in jail, a flip side of retribution. The last is removal: it's hard to commit crimes against innocent people if you're not around innocent people. The death penalty is the ultimate in removal. But it's final. So, you can't fix it if you screwed up in applying it. And that's why I'm against it, generally speaking. Our justice system is not reliable enough to avoid innocents getting ground by the wheels of justice, even at the level of scrutiny of capital punishment. So, excepting things like killed a guy in prison, I can't support it.

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

#164

Post by throw0101a »

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…

> It's retributive justice, it's not a deterrent.

Or it's a form of societal self-defence: there are some folks that will continue to be a menace to society, whether they'll do murder or other bad things, and society wants to eliminate the risk/threat.

If someone comes at you with a knife or gun, you have a right to protect yourself, potentially up to the point of killing the attacker. If someone comes at a group of people (e.g., at a temple, mosque, church), they have a right to protect yourself, potentially up to the point of killing the attacker.

If someone keeps coming at member of society, society has a right to protect itself.

In modern times, with modern prisons, it is much easier to keep these people isolated from society at large, and so the need for the mechanism has been diminished, but the principle is still there.

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

#165

Post by Aeolun »

lisper wrote: post #131
beerandt wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is, but those claiming psedoscience aren't even claiming that the set of symptoms aren't "real", just that they don't deserve their own label because of the implication. "We can't explain this trio of internal head/brain/eye trauma with lack of corresponding external trauma, but don't you dare make the reasonable claim that shaking a baby can/does nominally cause the symptoms we see when a baby is, in fact, shaken…

Sorry, I am very confused here. The comment I was responding to said: > to make that bullshit even worse, Texas continued to use hypnosis induced testimony until 2021. That is a sentiment with which I sympathize. But then... > It makes me wonder when the last death penalty sentence for "shaken baby syndrome" was in Texas. This I don't get. Shaken baby syndrome is a real thing, and it seems to me that if someone shake…

I think the point is that you don’t get shaken dead babies without visible external trauma.

So saying it’s ‘shaken baby syndrome’ just because there are internal injuries is junk science.

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

#166

Post by friend_and_foe »

d-z-m wrote: post #53
lapcat wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The conservative ethos is to reduce the power of the state to prevent abuse It's not. Maybe you're thinking of libertarianism? The conservative ethos is to preserve and promote a social hierarchy. This requires both winners and losers.

> It's not. Limiting the power of government is a central idea in conservative thought, especially in America[0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_in_the_United_Sta...

The articulation political landscape in the US is excessively reductive. "Conservatives", usually referencing social conservatives and often implying Christianity, are not small government people. They're currently allied with the small government people in a coalition that constitutes the current base of the Republican party, but conservatives and small government libertarian minded people are two different constituencies. They might overlap a bit, you get some religious people with a live and let live mentality or a social conservative who believes that social structures should be enforced by community rather than law, but they're distinct ideologies.

It's like how everyone says liberals are socialist progressives. They're usually not, but the two groups form a coalition that constitutes the base of the Democrat party.

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

#168

Post by Retric »

standardUser wrote: post #140
Retric wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Retribution would require mimicry of the original crimes. That’s not what’s going on, it’s simply an attempt to reframe an old argument. Some cultures actually did do retribution based executions, they where horrific and very different from lethal injection etc.

"Retribution would require mimicry of the original crimes." No, it would not. That's not the definition of retribution.

Suggesting any negative consequence was retribution would imply that simply sending someone to prison was also retribution and thus the death penalty was unnecessary.

The argument was one for the proportionality of death for death, but death wasn’t the only harm. That’s an inherent contradiction in the argument being made. You can’t argue an unequal punishment balances the scales here.

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

#169

Post by abduhl »

Retric wrote: post #119
beerandt wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's relevant. "We couldn't simultaneously argue two conflicting theories of defense"... Isn't quite the same argument when your revealed preference shows you not to believe either theory to stand on its own (or together). "Your honor, we'd like this conviction thrown out because we couldve/shouldve claimed 'defense option B'." Retrial granted. "No! We don't actually want to retry with 'defense option B'! W…

It’s perfectly reasonable to argue you don’t want to waste time in prison waiting for a trial if you think the evidence is clear enough. An appeals judge should be able to make that call the same way a trial judge can dismiss charges before trial. That appeals judge can easily say, it’s relevant but not clear enough for me to dismiss the case. PS: Thus various standards of evidence “beyond reasonable doubt” vs “clear…

What is the standard to be used by a court sitting in appeal on issues of fact not presented at trial to a jury of a defendant’s peers when throwing away that jury’s verdict?

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

#170

Post by lost_tourist »

GlumWoodpecker wrote: post #5

Powerful article. What strikes me as a layman (non-lawyer, non-law enforcement), is how prevalent these methods of forensic science have become, without any solid scientific basis backing them up - such as peer reviewed studies with quantifiable evidence. You'd think that in order for the state to take the life of a human being, you'd need to prove it using means that are more thoroughly vetted than "[one doctor] who…

Propublica also had a pretty great article earlier this year on the topic as well. https://www.propublica.org/article/understanding-junk-scienc...
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