Faulty investigation leads to execution

What do you think Cameron Willingham's loved ones would say about it? What do you think they would say to the family of someone who was murdered?

 

I'll settle for a torture penalty

 

Agreed.

But that's a good reason why nobody who knows/loves the victim is on the jury. They're grieving; they're going to feel whatever they feel, and chances are it's not going to be rational.

The question is, why do so many people with no connection to the crime feel the need for bloodlust?

 

There is a difference between justice and vengeance.

Too many of the bloodthirsty crowd believe they are one and the same.

 

Though I am opposed to the death penalty I do understand that there is something instinctive in us that says that the only rightful response to murder is to kill the murderer.

 

I am as hard-core, "throw away the key," on violent criminals as anyone. But I'm sold on abolishing the death penalty. There have just been way too many cases where the wrong person has been convicted either due to prosecutorial malfeasance, incompetence on the part of defenders, shoddy detective work or other miscellaneous mistakes to be comfortable with the ultimate punishment. There are no do-overs, no, "oops, sorry," if an innocent person is executed. Besides, I do not have a good feeling about giving the state the right to legally take a human life for any reason.

 

I'm not "bloodthirsty", I just believe some people don't deserve to live. For me, very few people, would actually qualify for death.......solid DNA evidence, an admission, zero signs of remorse. There might not be a death penalty conviction for years.....that's fine. The man in this story, even if guilty wouldn't fall under the death penalty.

It's not about death as a penalty, but the value of life. And, for that very select few that receive the death penalty, after all the appeals are done, I wouldn't tell them when they would die. So every time the guards opened the door, they wouldn't know.......THAT is punishment.

 

One local talk show host did a poll after Neil Entwhistle was convicted of killing his wife and infant daughter and sentenced to life without parole. He asked the listeners if they thought he would ever get out of prison.
Most of the listeners thought he would, which either means that his listeners are too stupid to know what "life without parole" means or they're so cynical they think that nothing ever really means what it means.

 

I don't believe any person on the planet is fit to make that judgment about another human being. I think that's the most extreme form of hubris.

Certainly, I don't feel qualified to make that judgment. And I wouldn't want anyone else making that judgment about me.

 

With an attitude like that, Buck, you're never going to get selected for an Obama death panel.

 

I just read this last night, Small Town Guy. Just from a journalistic standpoint, it was superbly reported and written -- well worth the time. David Grann did an excellent job. This, to me, is a textbook example of how a case that seems to be open-and-shut might not be, especially when using methods that appeared to be slipshod and obsolete to build a case against the guy.

Willingham fit the profile of someone who might do this, and the authorities ran with it. Because he wasn't wealthy (like many death-row inmates), he only had a court-appointed lawyer, who did a horrible job. Even after people began nosing around on Willingham's behalf, including Hurst, the arson expert, the wheels were in motion to execute him.

I'm not necessarily an opponent of the death penalty, but this was a case in which a man never should have put to death. I don't think it's too far out, given Hurst's findings later, to say Willingham shouldn't even have served jail time. As the article mentioned, Texas could become the first state to acknowledge officially that it had carried out "the execution of a legally and factually innocent person."

 

Barry Scheck deserves a KITN for oj simpson, but his innocence project is doing god's work