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Quote:The fear that an innocent person might be executed has long haunted jurors and lawyers and judges. During America’s Colonial period, dozens of crimes were punishable by death, including horse thievery, blasphemy, “man-stealing,” and highway robbery. After independence, the number of crimes eligible for the death penalty was gradually reduced, but doubts persisted over whether legal procedures were sufficient to prevent an innocent person from being executed...

Quote:Dr. Gerald Hurst, an acclaimed scientist and fire investigator...received the files on Willingham’s case only a few weeks before Willingham was scheduled to be executed. As Hurst looked through the case records, a statement by Manuel Vasquez, the state deputy fire marshal, jumped out at him. Vasquez had testified that, of the roughly twelve hundred to fifteen hundred fires he had investigated, “most all of them” were arson. This was an oddly high estimate; the Texas State Fire Marshals Office typically found arson in only fifty per cent of its cases...

Without having visited the fire scene, Hurst says, it was impossible to pinpoint the cause of the blaze. But, based on the evidence, he had little doubt that it was an accidental fire—one caused most likely by the space heater or faulty electrical wiring. It explained why there had never been a motive for the crime. Hurst concluded that there was no evidence of arson, and that a man who had already lost his three children and spent twelve years in jail was about to be executed based on “junk science.”...

Quote:On February 13th, four days before Willingham was scheduled to be executed, he got a call from Reaves, his attorney. Reaves told him that the fifteen members of the Board of Pardons and Paroles, which reviews an application for clemency and had been sent Hurst’s report, had made their decision.
“What is it?” Willingham asked.
“I’m sorry,” Reaves said. “They denied your petition.”
The vote was unanimous. Reaves could not offer an explanation: the board deliberates in secret, and its members are not bound by any specific criteria...

Quote:In December, 2004, [after Willingham's execution in February of the same year] questions about the scientific evidence in the Willingham case began to surface. Maurice Possley and Steve Mills, of the Chicago Tribune, had published an investigative series on flaws in forensic science; upon learning of Hurst’s report, Possley and Mills asked three fire experts, including John Lentini, to examine the original investigation. The experts concurred with Hurst’s report. Nearly two years later, the Innocence Project commissioned Lentini and three other top fire investigators to conduct an independent review of the arson evidence in the Willingham case. The panel concluded that “each and every one” of the indicators of arson had been “scientifically proven to be invalid.”...

In 2005, Texas established a government commission to investigate allegations of error and misconduct by forensic scientists. The first cases that are being reviewed by the commission are those of Willingham and Willis. In mid-August, the noted fire scientist Craig Beyler, who was hired by the commission, completed his investigation. In a scathing report, he concluded that investigators in the Willingham case had no scientific basis for claiming that the fire was arson, ignored evidence that contradicted their theory, had no comprehension of flashover and fire dynamics, relied on discredited folklore, and failed to eliminate potential accidental or alternative causes of the fire...

Quote:There is a chance, however, that Texas could become the first state to acknowledge officially that, since the advent of the modern judicial system, it had carried out the “execution of a legally and factually innocent person.”

I'll trade you the death penalty for protection of the unborn...right now.

It's a 17 page article...but well worth the read. What happens now? Does this impact our penal system like a asteroid impacting the country side or does this land like a ping on the landscape - with no real impact?

Personally I think this will have far reaching consequences…and could signal the end of the death penalty in our country…even if that takes 5-10 years – this will be viewed as the beginning of the end.

(08-31-2009 07:22 PM)marsbennett Wrote: [ -> ]I'll trade you the death penalty for protection of the unborn...right now.

Sorry, one has nothing to do with the other.

(08-31-2009 07:26 PM)p5mmr9 Wrote: [ -> ]

(08-31-2009 07:22 PM)marsbennett Wrote: [ -> ]I'll trade you the death penalty for protection of the unborn...right now.

Sorry, one has nothing to do with the other.

No doubt. One is a real victim that did nothing wrong and the other is a child murderer/rapist.

So which thread should you post in?

Just keeping the threads nice and even. Carry on.

Let's work on protecting the born

(08-31-2009 07:38 PM)marsbennett Wrote: [ -> ]No doubt. One is a real victim that did nothing wrong and the other is a child murderer/rapist.

I find your unwillingness to respond to the perversion of "justice" demonstrated by the OP and your black and white morality evident in your threadjacking to be pretty repellent.

(08-31-2009 08:48 PM)don bosco Wrote: [ -> ]Let's work on protecting the born

Logistics?

Health Care Guaranteed?

(08-31-2009 11:22 PM)don bosco Wrote: [ -> ]Health Care Guaranteed?

It is for children.

(08-31-2009 10:57 PM)racecar Wrote: [ -> ]

(08-31-2009 07:38 PM)marsbennett Wrote: [ -> ]No doubt. One is a real victim that did nothing wrong and the other is a child murderer/rapist.

I find your unwillingness to respond to the perversion of "justice" demonstrated by the OP and your black and white morality evident in your threadjacking to be pretty repellent.

Dude, I'm opposed to the death penalty in almost all cases. I just have a difficult time motivating to speak up for most people who have found themselves on death row by their own actions. Wrongly convicted people are easy to step to the pump for, but do it for Ted Bundy's of the world...I pick my battles more judiciously.

(09-01-2009 06:31 AM)marsbennett Wrote: [ -> ]

(08-31-2009 10:57 PM)racecar Wrote: [ -> ]

(08-31-2009 07:38 PM)marsbennett Wrote: [ -> ]No doubt. One is a real victim that did nothing wrong and the other is a child murderer/rapist.

I find your unwillingness to respond to the perversion of "justice" demonstrated by the OP and your black and white morality evident in your threadjacking to be pretty repellent.

Dude, I'm opposed to the death penalty in almost all cases. I just have a difficult time motivating to speak up for most people who have found themselves on death row by their own actions. Wrongly convicted people are easy to step to the pump for, but do it for Ted Bundy's of the world...I pick my battles more judiciously.

A rather confusing position. Are you saying you are against the death penalty, but only when those executed are innocent?

By that logic I might conclude that you are equally against putting people in jail. (Surely you are not in favor of jailing innocent people, are you?)

(09-01-2009 06:05 PM)Tenmile Wrote: [ -> ]

(09-01-2009 06:31 AM)marsbennett Wrote: [ -> ]

(08-31-2009 10:57 PM)racecar Wrote: [ -> ]

(08-31-2009 07:38 PM)marsbennett Wrote: [ -> ]No doubt. One is a real victim that did nothing wrong and the other is a child murderer/rapist.

I find your unwillingness to respond to the perversion of "justice" demonstrated by the OP and your black and white morality evident in your threadjacking to be pretty repellent.

Dude, I'm opposed to the death penalty in almost all cases. I just have a difficult time motivating to speak up for most people who have found themselves on death row by their own actions. Wrongly convicted people are easy to step to the pump for, but do it for Ted Bundy's of the world...I pick my battles more judiciously.

A rather confusing position. Are you saying you are against the death penalty, but only when those executed are innocent?

By that logic I might conclude that you are equally against putting people in jail. (Surely you are not in favor of jailing innocent people, are you?)

I'm saying I believe the death penalty to be a mistake. I have not always felt that way. A few years ago, I came to the conclusion that wanting to protect the unborn and yet putting others to death were in conflict, for me. Having said that, there are many things I'm opposed to that the government does, but all things do not offend me equally. Innocent people in jail and innocent people put to death rank right up there at the top, while vicious murderers and child killers dying from state sponsored killing just doesn't get me in the mood to put my life on hold and stand up for their(real killers) rights. I'm opposed to the death penalty, but open season on the truly innocent (for instance) is more offensive to me. I wish the death penalty would end tomorrow, but then again, I wish the Fed was under Treasury, the unborn were protected, and the endless wars were brought to an end even more. Hypocritical? Perhaps, but I'm being honest.

I am not against the principle of the death penalty, but I have no confidence in our justice system to carry it out. the death penalty should be abolished.

(08-31-2009 11:22 PM)don bosco Wrote: [ -> ]Health Care Guaranteed?

The only right we should be guaranteed is the right to exist. After that, we have to negotiate with everyone else.

(09-02-2009 12:35 PM)JMGrimp Wrote: [ -> ]

(08-31-2009 11:22 PM)don bosco Wrote: [ -> ]Health Care Guaranteed?

The only right we should be guaranteed is the right to exist. After that, we have to negotiate with everyone else.

Yeah, [] the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence.

(08-31-2009 11:22 PM)don bosco Wrote: [ -> ]Health Care Guaranteed?

Guaranteed, NEVER!

Universally accessible, probably!

Supported COBRA underwriting at job loss, absolutely!

(09-02-2009 08:40 AM)The_Suicidal_Peanuts Wrote: [ -> ]I am not against the principle of the death penalty, but I have no confidence in our justice system to carry it out. the death penalty should be abolished.

Absolutely against the death penalty because:

1. Death is too good for most of those who commit heinous crimes. Life without parole in solitary confinement is the order of the day.

2. The death penalty is not a deterrent.

3. It is cheaper by a long run to have a convicted perp to housed in a small cell for life then it is to pay enormous amounts of money with all the appeals (the taxpayers fund the state's defense of the sentence and also the defense counsel filing the appeals for the condemned felon) and then there is the special death row facilities.

4. Storing a capital crime convict in a death row for upwards of 22 years, is to me an unusual punishment, possible cruel, given the endless appeals and reprieves.

5. And the biggest one, putting to death an innocent man/woman.

I completely reversed a life long position in the 'eye for an eye' concept after careful examination of my reasons to support the death penalty, and found I had no valid reasons.

I'm against the process of the Death Penalty but not the penalty itself. I'm still a proponent of "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."

It's is unfortunate that innocent people die but at the same time innocent people spend life in prison.

I've gone back and forth on this issue and I look at it from a personal level. If someone murdered one of my family members, I would want them dead (no exceptions). I believe whole-heartedly that some people don't have the right to continue living on this earth if they are that psychologically screwed up in the head. I come across stories of people who have microwaved their babies or others who have drowned their kids in the bathtub. Bottom line is that these people have no place in our society or our world, for that matter.