DNA evidence overturns 30 year conviction

[NickStone]

I've just read that DNA evidence had just come to light which proved that two brothers which were convicted of the rape and murder of a little girl were in fact innocent. These two men had spent 30 years in prison, one of them on death row, for a crime they did not do.

Whenever I hear of stories like this it certainly enforces my opinion that the death penalty should never return to the UK and that it should be banned throughout the whole world. I can imagine that, at the time of the convictions, there would have been a lot of anger from people following the case and would have demanded their immediate deaths.

I really hope that these two men get compensation from the government or state (or both) and that the police officers who arrested them with the original prosecutor get charged with perverting the course of justice or the equivalent of that law in the US.

Full story here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-29039964

It makes me so angry when I hear of miscarriages of justice and the people involved (the police and prosecutors) get away with it such as in the cases of the Guildford four and Birmingham six

[oshunluvr]

Don't feel alone, Nick. Here in the U.S. the citizens of Texas know they've executed innocent men (usually black) yet they voted down the repeal of the death penalty a few years ago. Oklahoma is even worse at ensuring death penalty cases are fairly adjudicated. I don't feel safe even driving through these states - and I'm a middle-aged white guy.

The only more ridiculous factor is these same states (among others) constantly attempt to restrict or end legal abortions - because in their view abortion is murder - and the death penalty isn't Absurd beyond belief. When you add in the the fact that death penalty cases (at least here in the US) cost two to four times as much as a life sentence case and housing death row inmates costs twice as much or more per year and the death penalty is even more absurd. Are there criminals that deserve to die? Certainly. Is our government - any government - trustworthy and able to do it correctly, fairly, and without error? Definitely NOT.

[GreyGeek]

...
The only more ridiculous factor is these same states (among others) constantly attempt to restrict or end legal abortions - because in their view abortion is murder - and the death penalty isn't Absurd beyond belief.

Indeed. That is why I am against both forms of the death penalty. Even worse for both forms is being put to death for an act or action the condemned had no part of. Of what crime is an unborn child guilty of that they deserve to be torn limb from limb and sucked out of the womb in pieces, or be burned alive with a saline solution, or be partially born and have a spoon shoved through their Foramen Ovale and their brains scooped out? When did being inconvenient become deserving of the death penalty?

When you add in the the fact that death penalty cases (at least here in the US) cost two to four times as much as a life sentence case and housing death row inmates costs twice as much or more per year and the death penalty is even more absurd. Are there criminals that deserve to die? Certainly. Is our government - any government - trustworthy and able to do it correctly, fairly, and without error? Definitely NOT.

To be fair, the cost of housing convicts on death row is not because of actual housing, guarding, clothing, board, medical care costs. It is due to states being forced to house convicted murders for years because of continuing and expensive legal actions, and the theory that if a person is executed it should be guaranteed that he or she will feel not the slightest twinge of pain.

What can't the executioner do it right?

Firing squads - they miss a vital spot. The person is only injured. They have to fire again. What if they miss again? What if the person isn't killed but passes into a low metabolic state, awakening in the morgue?

Hanging - knot poorly made or placed, which does not result in an instantly broken neck. Even if the neck is broken the means of death is the same, suffocation. A broken neck severs the brain's connection to the rest of the body, shutting down the diaphragm, which results in suffocation. The condemned cannot react or show discomfort because the broken neck makes them a quadriplegic, except for eyes and facial muscles, which is why a hood is always put over the head, only so observers do not see the momentary suffering. Momentary? How long can you hold your breath when you are not excited or high on adrenaline? Once you pass out the rest of painless.

Electric chair - Not enough current because the voltage isn't sufficient or the skin resistance wasn't overcome with the saline solution in the pads. Too much low voltage current, which tortures but does not kill immediately. Too much high voltage, which burns the skin but doesn't allow sufficient current until the sites of the pads carbonize and resistance decreases significantly. The electric chair was never truly painless. Records show some were electrocuted for up to 10 minutes. I suspect that in some cases the act was deliberate.

Gas Chamber - Nothing should be easier. Put the condemned into a air tight chamber (for the sake of the witnesses), drop some Sodium Cyanide into a container of Sulfuric Acid, and let the Hydrogen Cyanide fill the chamber. It is the fastest acting poisonous gas known. Many condemned take a huge breath in order to get it over ASAP. Others hold their breath as long as they can. Painful? Cyanide works by halting the work of the cytochrome c oxidase. The median lethal dose is about 1.5mg/Kg. Many body chemicals can bind with cyanide and reduce its toxicity. Vitamin B12 will neutralize it. So will Oxygen. Glucose is also a reported antidote. If a person happened to take a lot of B12 and and Glucose, and hyperventilated on Oxygen he may survive much longer than the few seconds it would take for Cyanide to kill. However, that leaves plenty of room for the tender hearted to complain about cruel or unusual punishment.

Lethal injection - Should be the best, quickest and easiest method to cause death, but it is not. Wrong or untested chemicals, or the right chemicals introduced in the wrong order, or injected into the wrong place. Failure to inject into a major vein. A recent attempt resulted in the person injecting the chemicals into a muscle, which took almost an hour to kill the guy. Deliberate incompetence? How could something so easy be made so difficult? How many people have blood samples taken every day without problems? Tens or hundreds of thousands.

Other methods have not been used in the US since it became a sovereign nation.

Drowning - A form of suffocation. Guaranteed to work in under 5 minutes if the water is at room temp. The condemned is left under water for the rest of the day, just to be sure.

Suffocation Chair - It cuts to the chase and employs the method at the base of many of those methods listed above. The condemned is strapped into a chair. A belt attached to a lever is put around the neck and then the lever is pulled strongly, tightening the leather belt around the neck, cutting off the air supply. It is locked in place until the heart stops beating.

Stoning - A deliberately painful method. The smaller the stones the longer and more painful the process. The condemned is often placed in a hole and buried up to their waist, to prevent them from running around. Eventually, the condemned is buried under a pile of stones and is usually left there to rot.

Crushing - Hasn't been used since it was called "pressing" in the English colonies of the 17th century. Very effective. With the condemned squished flat, including the head (and sometimes only the head) there is no doubt about death. Painful? No doubt, until the melon burst.

Beheading - If done right, with a very sharp sword or axe, delivered with an accurate swing, death is nearly instantaneous, if not so. Blood flow to the brain is interrupted. Consciousness is lost within seconds. Probably less than five seconds because blood pressure is lost immediately and the oxygen in the brain cells are consumed just as rapidly. The brain's weight is about 1% of the body weight but takes 10% of the Oxygen inhaled. Does the condemned fell their head hitting the ground? Probably not. The shock of the cut probably reverberates up the spinal cord to the brain, scrambling electric signals, which remain scrambled until death of the brain.

Guillotine - The individual is strapped, while standing, to a table that can pivot to the horizontal. In the horizontal position the table is adjusted forward or backward until the neck of the condemned is positioned in a cradle, with the top half of the cradle being lowered to keep the neck, and head, secure and unmovable. A razor sharp heavy blade is allowed to fall, cutting off the head.

The guillotine, combined with a heavy sedative, would create the most humane form of execution. The condemned is given a pill or drink which induces heavy sleep. The condemned is placed on the guillotine table and executed. If the sedative is strong enough it is sufficient to induce death, but the guillotine guarantees death.

The problem with all of the above methods is, despite the fact that the American legal system is probably the fairest in the world, that they require a fallible jury to determine guilt based on evidence presented by a biased and fallible legal system which presents to the jury only what the prosecutor/judge wants the jury to hear or see. I've been part of several court room proceedings as part of my consulting work. Fortunately, none of them resulted in a death penalty conviction. A few years ago it was claimed that the head of the Douglas County CSI had salted several crime scenes with DNA (from the victim and the accused). He is now out of prison. Was he guilty? The prosecutor claimed his own words "tripped him up", but it is easy for an interrogator to confuse someone and then claim the person was lying.

When political correctness runs amok the justice system can turn into a circus. The McMartin Preschool Abuse Trial, Los Angeles County (1987 to 1990) was the longest running criminal trial in US history, if I am not mistaken. It was also the most expensive trial in US history for the prosecution - $15 million. No one was found guilty, but the lives of the defendants were irreparably damaged, and many children were emotionally harmed. It was learned that several children were coached by a state social worker, who was using dolls to teach them sexual positions, which the children regurgitated in court, supposedly "proving" the guilt of the worker. The actual videos of her sessions showed that the children had no knowledge of what she was talking about, or what she wanted from them, until she taught and trained them to say what officers of the court apparently wanted to hear.

Now, it's not about murder, but imagine that you are identified by the IRS, for example, as someone whose political leanings are not as far Left as Lois Learner or some other IRS agents, and that you have been targeted for an audit. You are ALL guilty of violating some law, somewhere. It only remains for some prosecutor to decide just how he or she will "interpret" the language of some law to achieve the result they desire. Your innocence is immaterial. If they don't like your politics you'll pay, one way or another. Scary, isn't it?