Texas death row inmate at mercy of supreme court, and junk science • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by dsego » Wed, Sep 27, 2023, 11:46 AM UTC

thomastjeffery wrote: post #243

dsego wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wonder how moral and fair it is to provide an opportunity for rehabilitation to someone guilty of a heinous crime, since they didn't provide a second chance to their victims. It seem like a great cosmic injustice. As for punishing vigilantes, should settling the score be more severely punished than the original crime? Let's say a person kills someone I love, and I take my revenge by killing them, am I now no…

fair ≠ moral

Depends on your moral framework I would guess, morality isn't absolute.

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

#252

Post by tbugrara » Wed, Sep 27, 2023, 6:35 PM UTC

lisper wrote: post #108

boomboomsubban wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For the love of god, read the damn article before commenting.

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

#253

Post by sacnoradhq » Wed, Sep 27, 2023, 9:51 PM UTC

It's awful. On death row in Texas for the crime of bringing their chronically ill child to the hospital in distress.

Texas has a history of executing the disabled and presenting "expert" junk science as evidence. https://www.propublica.org/article/is-texas-still-executing-...

https://www.texastribune.org/2011/04/15/texas-psychologist-p...

Illinois had similar problems with the death penalty, including likely executing innocent people.

Arkansas executed an innocent but convicted person in 2017 who was subsequently cleared by DNA evidence. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/making-sense-chaos/2...

So it seems the death penalty cannot be enforced if it cannot be investigated or adjudicated with a necessary and sufficient degree of rigor. It also doesn't serve a purpose as a deterrent (criminals aren't smart enough to anticipate outcomes). Furthermore, it makes the society that dispenses it appear governed by a 3rd-world authoritarian regime. Finally, it's an expensive process and a bloodlust spectacle. Better off keeping cretins alive behind bars for the remote possibility of rehabilitation and let them live with themselves rather than giving them an easy out.

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

#254

Post by sacnoradhq » Wed, Sep 27, 2023, 10:02 PM UTC

rossant wrote: post #132

lisper wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

Good references. The total gamut of child abuse doesn't necessarily leave any physical or medical evidence, and much of it isn't technically illegal. It's been my experience that there is widespread hesitancy on the part of educators and medical professionals to report borderline or even clear-cut abuse.

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

#255

Post by sacnoradhq » Wed, Sep 27, 2023, 10:05 PM UTC

rossant wrote: post #242

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, can you please post your cambridgeblog.com article on HN? As you say in your article, there must be hundreds, if not thousands of people in jail for having shaken their babies to death. I can't imagine any harm more horrible that our society can perpetrate than punishing someone for the death of their loved ones when they had nothing to do with it. To think that this is done systematically is inconsolable, insuf…

Sure, done: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37650402 I totally agree. This is insufferable. This is not just a virtual, academic subject to me. I've cofounded an association of French families [1] that has been contacted by 1300+ people in the past 8 years or so. I see parents losing their baby to foster care for 6, 12, 24 months or more. To say they are broken for life is an understatement. I see fathers, mothe…

That sounds like a Kafkaesque, dystopian situation of readily tearing families apart, lack of due process, and guilt until proven innocence.

I would recommend contacting ProPublica and TheGuardian to raise awareness.

Edit: My cousin is similar to a nurse at an adolescent lockdown facility in N. Texas for serious mental healthcare and physical safety needs that no parent could reasonably hope to provide. The standard is so high and the beds so few, the kids in the facility are the most desperate cases and pretrial diversions that would otherwise go unaddressed in carceral situations. It takes a special, brave, and trained caregiver to meet the needs that medication, godly patience and tolerance, and love alone cannot provide.