Faulty investigation leads to execution

Conservatives can't stand it when someone who doesn't belong to their Country Club gets away with something. Whether it's getting money from the government or getting out of jail early or being in the country illegally, that seems to be the thing that really sets off the Righties.

So hanging a few innocent men is a small price to pay.

 

Just finished the New Yorker story.

Oh, my God. He didn't do it. Oh, my God.

Among the evidence: He had a Led Zeppelin poster in his house.

Wow.

I can't believe this isn't getting more play. This could end the death penalty, no?

 

Just imagine what must have been going through his mind in those final moments. Jesus.

 

It should but it won't.

 

Read the New Yorker story before bed last night. Couldn't sleep. Not only was he not guilty of a crime, no crime had even occurred. Horrifying.

 

Perry needs to declare a moratorium on executions in the state. NOW. Before a single other person is put to death. And the federal government needs to address this ASAP, as well.

 

If there's any justice, that thought keeps the prosecutor awake every night. But somehow, I doubt the prosecutor cares.

 

I think that a lot of times, people rationalize the jailing of innocent people by deciding that the person doesn't deserve their sympathy. I'm sure that's the reaction we'll get from the bloodthirst crowd regarding Willingham. He was an allegedly abusive husband. He had some juvenile priors.

I wish I could find the post, but I remember someone on a death penalty thread on this board saying something along the lines of, "Someone who is accused of murder had to have done SOMETHING."

 

I made that post. I didn't say it myself, nor do I agree with it. It was said by a person I knew when talking about the death penalty and expressing my concerns that someone might be wrongfully executed. The person said that it was common sense that if I person could be in a position where they could be wrongfully accused and convicted, common sense tells you at some point in their life they've done something.
Though I hope this case leads to the eventual abolition of the death penalty, I know it won't. Not in my lifetime.

 

No, I don't think that's the post I'm remembering. I mean, someone here - probably Scribe or O_T or YankeeFan - actually said that. It may not have been a death penalty thread. May have been another law-and-order thread talking about American criminal justice in general.

 

Dahlia Lithwick's take:

http://www.slate.com/id/2227222/

Scalia's America, the Cameron Todd Willingham whose very existence was once in doubt is today constitutionally immaterial. Having waited decades for an innocent victim of capital punishment, the fact that we have finally found one won't matter at all. In this new America we can execute a man for an accidental house fire, while the constitution stands silently by.