251–260 of 514 posts
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Activists don't have the power to free people.
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That seems like pretty strong evidence to me!
It's unfortunate that a lot of the messaging has shifted to he's innocent, where I believe the right message (and far less viral message), is the government has not shown enough evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the death penalty is warranted. I don't believe in the death penalty because I don't think the state should have the authority to execute citizens and even moreso when a very high bar of culpability has…
The jury only provided the unanimous guilty verdict. After that point, the defendant has been declared guilty beyond all reasonable doubt by the state, and it's up to the judge to determine the appropriate punishment for someone guilty of the crime of 1st degree murder, robbery, etc.
It's possible that some on the jury did not want the death penalty, but were not ready to acquit.
> I'm against it because I don't think it's a power the state should be able to wield.
To your point, the Innocence Project claims 251 exonerations, with ~9% (22) exonerations coming after the death penalty had already occured. The IP reported receiving 65,600 letters for assistance, so around ~0.4% of all requests for help were later proven to be wrongful convictions. There are currently around 2,200 prisoners on Death Row (https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/death-row/overview/death-row-us...). Assuming the ~0.4% wrongful conviction rate is representative for this population, that would be around 8-9 people. Some States have paused executions, and the US executes about ~20 people per year. So that would be a wrongful execution every ~12.5 years on average, again if these percentages are representative of death row convictions.
The wikipedia article continues: "Lara Asaro, the girlfriend of Williams at the time of the crime, gave testimony that Williams had confessed to her... This is after she discovered evidence from the crime scene in Williams' car."
This is an important clarification: The police did not find the victim's property in Williams' car. Rather, Williams' ex-girlfriend, who was incentivized by reward money, claimed, more than 8 months after the crime, that she saw the victim's property in his car.
This is one of the the main reasons that the Innocence Project correctly argues that there is no reliable evidence linking Marcellus Williams to the murder.
Does anyone find it deeply disturbing that the justice system will just sit on its own hands when presented with new evidence? It seems like prosecutors are more interested in maintaining a hi conviction rate rather than seeking justice. Judges seem totally apathetic.
The justice system wasn't presented with any new evidence. Some DNA from the prosecution's office ended up on the weapon sometime in the preceding 17 years, big whoop. This isn't exculpatory and doesn't contradict a single claim made by the prosecution, and there was plenty of strong evidence that he did it, such as possessing all the victim's stuff and pawning her laptop and bragging about how he did it in words tha…
This should not be sufficient to justify the death penalty. Whether or not this guy did it, using such an incredibly weak standard will and almost certainly has killed innocent people.
> This is the Innocence Project's standard beat. They attempt to free a lot of convicts…whose conviction was based on very strong evidence
“Very strong” evidence should never be enough to sentence someone to death. The evidence should be irrefutable. Anything less is unacceptable and inexcusable.
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It's pure speculation that the partial DNA profile recovered years after the murder came from the murderer. The police recovered the murdered woman's property from his car. How did it get there? Either it was an elaborate frame-up or a career criminal murdered a woman and stole her property. You (and The Innocence Project) apparently think that DNA must be found at the crime scene in order to convict. But is it the c…
You are severely misunderstanding the role of DNA evidence here - you suggest that those arguing for Williams' innocence (including The Innocence Project) rely solely on the absence of DNA evidence linking Williams to the crime. However, this misrepresents the argument. The absence of DNA evidence is significant not because DNA is expected to be found in every case, but because other substantial forensic evidence (fi…
DNA evidence of someone other then the accused but not the accused at the crime scene wouldn't introduce reasonable doubt if there was a video of the accused committing the crime, so it doesn't inherently introduce reasonable doubt, but only if the evidence against the accused isn't strong enough, which is again subjective.
Responding to an admission of subjectivity ("to me") with "your subjective opinion is irrelevant" only discourages humilty.
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The argument is that the girlfriend and jailhouse snitch both were looking to get the $10k reward money for his conviction. And that’s the only way the third point (had the items in the car) was known (from the girlfriend).
> argument is that the girlfriend and jailhouse snitch both were looking to get the $10k reward money for his conviction The Governor's counterargument being the "girlfriend never requested the reward for information about Ms. Gayle’s murder, despite claims that she was only interested in money" [1]. The interesting thing is I could see myself, were I on the jury, and if the other facts of the case aligned, finding W…
There is a degree of certainty required for a conviction. It is up to the jury to only decide if that degree of certainty has been reached. It is up to the judge to determine the sentence. I make this point as the US justice system is set up explicitly so that the jury is not considering the sentencing, but only guilty or not guilty. This removes the rorscach test from the jurors consideration.
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"In this quest for vengeance I think people forget these rules are in place for the State to not abuse it's powers. I'm not against the death penalty because I'm a hippy vegan. I'm against it because I don't think it's a power the state should be able to wield." I am not sure what the US tries to achieve with the death penalty. Deterrence? Seems not to work. And EU countries have much lower violent crime. Even if the…
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If we aren't going to abolish the death penalty, we should at least require a higher standard of proof than beyond a reasonable doubt to carry it out. It should require incontrovertible proof. Circumstantial evidence should not be allowed. Expert testimony should be barred. The evidence must be conclusive, plain, and certain to every member of the jury. This would allow you to execute, e.g., mass shooters who give th…
Preaching to a choir of geeks looking for "solutions" is the wrong target.
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Sentencing a man to death when there is reasonable doubt of his guilt is a miscarriage of justice. "A crime scene covered with forensic evidence contained no link to Mr. Williams. Mr. Williams has been seeking to prove his innocence throughout the 23 years he has spent on Missouri’s death row. On August 11, 1998, Felicia Gayle, a former reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, was found stabbed to death in her home.…
It's pure speculation that the partial DNA profile recovered years after the murder came from the murderer. The police recovered the murdered woman's property from his car. How did it get there? Either it was an elaborate frame-up or a career criminal murdered a woman and stole her property. You (and The Innocence Project) apparently think that DNA must be found at the crime scene in order to convict. But is it the c…
> You (and The Innocence Project) apparently think that DNA must be found at the crime scene in order to convict.
Why exactly do you think this given the more than half dozen points outlined which illustrate the weak case?
It’s sad that the US government unnecessarily deprived a human being of their right to life. I hope one day the people involved are prosecuted for this premeditated murder.