That's a good question and I really wish it would be addressed.
Sareitha Sedai Send a noteboard - 22/09/2011 05:05:40 PM
That sounds awfully messed up. One part of the article that really caught my eye was the part where the Supreme Court said that Davis had failed to conclusively prove his innocence. Um. Isn't the entire justice system based on the idea that you are innocent until proven guilty? Shouldn't the prosecutors have to prove that he is guilty, instead of the other way around?
Yes, he was convicted by a jury, but given what was said there about witnesses changing their story, combined with the sketchy evidence ...
Executing a person under those circumstances is not all right.
I don't know if that's what the court actually required or if that is how the article's author phrased it, but it bugged me. He was proven guilty though, since he was convicted in the first place (whatever information has come out since the trial doesn't change that basic fact), so the presumption of innocence is already negated in his case. I still don't know how you "prove" somebody innocent though.
Other than proven innocent comment, is if all this evidence is so shaky, why didn't he win any of the appeals? That's where I'm confused...
It seems to me that there are 2 possible reasons:
1. He really is guilty.
2. The standard to overturn is set wrong or in a way that makes it anywhere from unlikely to impossible that it will happen. I mean I recognize that there has to be an initial assumption that the original trial was proper and we work forward from there (meaning the standard to overturn must necessarily be higher than the standard to convict in the first place). But in a case like this where it appears that the original trial was fundamentally flawed? Can that be proven? And if it is, does (or should) it negate the first trial?
If you are from Betelgeuse, please have one of your Earth friends read what I've written before you respond. Or try concentrating harder.
"The trophy problem has become extreme."
"The trophy problem has become extreme."
i'm proud to live in a country where you can be executed based on circumstantial evidence...
- 22/09/2011 04:06:07 PM
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And yet the Supreme Court didn't stop it. You're a lawyer right?
- 22/09/2011 04:19:05 PM
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Well, that right there was an ignorant thing to say.
- 22/09/2011 04:32:49 PM
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But they get all the media attention
- 22/09/2011 04:45:03 PM
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*NM*
Cameron Todd Willingham is white, and his story is a national one since Perry is running for Pres
- 23/09/2011 03:41:52 PM
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those numbers are less schocking when you consider that blacks commet a lot more murders *NM*
- 22/09/2011 05:43:51 PM
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And this is a typically illogical argument.
- 22/09/2011 11:11:48 PM
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You're kidding, right?
- 23/09/2011 02:55:44 PM
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Re: You're kidding, right?
- 23/09/2011 07:36:38 PM
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Juror bias. *NM*
- 23/09/2011 08:35:10 PM
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Your evidence for that? *NM*
- 23/09/2011 11:33:58 PM
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Twenty-one years of life in the American South.
- 24/09/2011 12:40:10 AM
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Of course I'm interested
- 24/09/2011 04:03:51 AM
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From me being too involved with the subject material. I apologize.
- 24/09/2011 11:16:06 AM
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While I largely agree with your argument, I agree more with Cannoli on the NAACP.
- 23/09/2011 07:46:06 PM
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Huh.
- 22/09/2011 04:47:20 PM
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That jumped out at me too.
- 22/09/2011 04:50:52 PM
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What really confuses me
- 22/09/2011 04:58:32 PM
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That's a good question and I really wish it would be addressed.
- 22/09/2011 05:05:40 PM
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Re: That's a good question and I really wish it would be addressed.
- 22/09/2011 05:21:59 PM
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If the original trial is shown to be flawed that's supposed to require a new trial.
- 22/09/2011 08:25:51 PM
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Well...
- 22/09/2011 05:18:54 PM
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So if I understand you correctly...
- 22/09/2011 05:23:00 PM
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Yes, that is correct. And proving witness coercion is likely to be difficult if not impossible. *NM*
- 22/09/2011 05:30:37 PM
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it is only confusing because the evidence isn't really that shaky
- 22/09/2011 08:54:21 PM
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If I understand the Supreme Court correctly, the reason they denied the stay of execution was
- 22/09/2011 08:25:14 PM
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I completely support the Death Penalty without question.....
- 22/09/2011 08:27:54 PM
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Unreasonable doubt is impossible to eliminate.
- 22/09/2011 09:54:43 PM
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Doubt can be eliminated.....any question about Dalmer?
- 23/09/2011 01:00:52 PM
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Maybe he was framed by an enemy, government conspiracy or aliens.
- 23/09/2011 01:54:21 PM
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Jigga what? 
*NM*
- 23/09/2011 03:36:07 PM
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*NM*
- 23/09/2011 03:36:07 PM
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"I do not know if I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly or am now a butterfly..."
- 23/09/2011 06:50:34 PM
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Circumstantial evidence is not, I believe, a bar to conviction.
- 22/09/2011 09:43:56 PM
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Regarding the salvation thing, that is an argument FOR the death penalty, in my mind.
- 22/09/2011 11:37:16 PM
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That motive is seflish and thus fatal.
- 23/09/2011 01:17:00 AM
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Bullshit
- 25/09/2011 03:53:05 AM
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Where do YOU get the idea that imperfect contrition is good enough?
- 25/09/2011 02:29:18 PM
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Thank God you're not an evangelist.
- 23/09/2011 02:59:06 PM
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And I pity the souls you have ministered to. They're in for a rude shock at their judgement
- 25/09/2011 04:01:05 AM
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lol roman catholicism *NM*
- 25/09/2011 04:39:55 AM
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Not just Roman Catholics, y'know, everyone who thinks God was not BSing about judgement.
- 25/09/2011 09:47:12 PM
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lol hellfire and brimstone *NM*
- 26/09/2011 12:12:28 AM
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I suppose in a consequences free world everything is a source of amusement.
- 26/09/2011 12:33:14 AM
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You really don't understand irony, do you? Particularly as it applies to your post about this case.
- 22/09/2011 11:26:49 PM
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.
- 23/09/2011 08:21:38 AM
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A list of anecdotal wrongs does not prove anything. If convictions can be wrong, so can exonerations *NM*
- 25/09/2011 04:03:26 AM
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sorry if i don't have time to link to every 
thing i've read on the subject
- 23/09/2011 02:54:50 PM
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thing i've read on the subject
- 23/09/2011 02:54:50 PM
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Well I would think you would have picked an article that offers some iota of proof of his innocence.
- 25/09/2011 04:14:45 AM
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Well, I wouldn't call eyewitness accounts circumstancial evidence.
- 23/09/2011 11:45:48 PM
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Nor would I, but I've heard that lawyers say, "an eye witness is the worst witness you can have."
- 25/09/2011 03:23:53 PM
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