Scalia, Thomas not bothered if the innocent are executed

[Yoink]

Again, the gun used to shoot Michael Cooper was the same gun used to murder Officer MacPhil. Even Davis' defenders aren't denying this.

What evidence is there that Davis shot Michael Cooper?

Also, the prosecution expert's own testimony at trial was only that that casings "probably" came from the same gun.

This is why it's probably not a great idea to rely for your summary of the facts of a case on the statements of the prosecuting DA (any more than it would be a good idea to rely on the statements of attorneys for the defense).

 

[Alt+F4]

What evidence is there that Davis shot Michael Cooper?

The testimony at the trial. Later Cooper like so many people in this case changed their story in this case over the years, and what's worse, many of Davis' supporters now claim the recants "prove" that the second man at the scene (Coles) is the real killer. That would mean of course that Coles should be the one facing the death penalty and that would lead to the anti-death penalty zelots to say it wasn't Coles.

It's scary to think that someone can be accused of murder based on witnesses statement from many years ago, while the original trial testimony is disregarded.

If you dump all the eyewitness statements where does that leave this case? No one on either side has ever suggested that the killer was someone other than Davis or Coles. With that said, who does the remaining evidence point to? Why did Coles almost immediately go to the police after the shooting while Davis fled for three weeks?

 

[Alt+F4]

Imagine for a second that Davis' sentence was commuted to life without parole. You can bet that the anti-death penalty advocates would dump him like a bad habit and move on to the next convict facing the needle. In addition, do you think any of those people would have cared about this case at all if the original sentence had been life rather than death?

These advocates have little interest in justice for Mark MacPhil or the suffering his family probably still feels.

 

[Yoink]

The testimony at the trial. Later Cooper like so many people in this case changed their story in this case over the years, and what's worse, many of Davis' supporters now claim the recants "prove" that the second man at the scene (Coles) is the real killer. That would mean of course that Coles should be the one facing the death penalty and that would lead to the anti-death penalty zelots to say it wasn't Coles.

It's scary to think that someone can be accused of murder based on witnesses statement from many years ago, while the original trial testimony is disregarded.

If you dump all the eyewitness statements where does that leave this case? No one on either side has ever suggested that the killer was someone other than Davis or Coles. With that said, who does the remaining evidence point to? Why did Coles almost immediately go to the police after the shooting while Davis fled for three weeks?

So you have no physical evidence that links (even probabilistically) Davis to any violent act. You have some physical evidence (and that of dubious quality) that suggests that the two acts of gun violence were perpetrated by the same person (whoever that person was). You have no physical evidence at all that links Davis to those two acts.

As to your question "why did Coles almost immediately go to the police"? Who knows? Maybe he was an innocent upstanding citizen who felt that the duty of every good citizen is to tell the truth. Maybe he was the killer and thought "hey, Davis has skipped town--if I go to the cops and pin the crime on him, I'll be in the clear." Either seems equally plausible to me from what little I know of the case.

If the police relied on the testimony of the actual perpetrator to put an innocent man in jail in this case you know perfectly well that that would be very, very far from being the first (or last) time that that had occurred.

I have no opinion one way or the other as to Davis's guilt (although I am deeply troubled at any case which relies solely on eyewitness testimony)--I haven't read a good independent account of the facts. I'm just not fool enough to think that a DA's summary of the facts is likely to be a sufficient basis on which to form a judgment.

 

[Alt+F4]

I have no opinion one way or the other as to Davis's guilt (although I am deeply troubled at any case which relies solely on eyewitness testimony)--I haven't read a good independent account of the facts. I'm just not fool enough to think that a DA's summary of the facts is likely to be a sufficient basis on which to form a judgment.

There are dozens of "Troy Davis is innocent" websites out there presenting the defense's version of events. Both sides agree that both state and federal courts have ruled that the "recants" are not legally sufficient for a new trial. I'm sure Davis' legal team is disappointed they can't play the race card in this trial.

Even if you throw everything else out and are left with just Coles and Davis at the scene of the murder the best you get is a 50% chance that it wasn't Davis. That is very different than what his supporters are saying, which is that he is innocent. There is no way they can know that.

 

[Tumbleweed]

I get the feeling skeptic girl is young and idealistic. Well, welcome to the REAL world. That the justice system is screwy is no big revelation to us Baby Boomers. Now you can beat your head against the wall demanding change OR you can try to avoid govt bureaucracies - including the justice dept. - at all costs as if they were the plague. And if you are an unlucky sap who gets caught in their red tape web, the ONLY thing you can do is pray! Once you enter their systems your goose is cooked. Those guys are GOOD! They have a catch 22 for EVERYTHING, even in going to heaven and hell

 

[Tumbleweed]

Thank God St Peter doesn't work for a bureaucracy( take a number and have a seat) But here's betting Satan sure as hell does because hell IS a bureaucracy and who better to head one than him. Or Scalia - his double-talk around reality makes him the PERFECT red tape catch 22 bureaucrat. . View the Justice System as a bureaucracy instead of an idealistic democratic institution, and it all falls into place as to why things are the way they are

 

[Yoink]

There are dozens of "Troy Davis is innocent" websites out there presenting the defense's version of events. Both sides agree that both state and federal courts have ruled that the "recants" are not legally sufficient for a new trial. I'm sure Davis' legal team is disappointed they can't play the race card in this trial.

Even if you throw everything else out and are left with just Coles and Davis at the scene of the murder the best you get is a 50% chance that it wasn't Davis. That is very different than what his supporters are saying, which is that he is innocent. There is no way they can know that.

If this summary of the case is correct, there's no way that Davis OR Coles should be behind bars. The standard is "innocent until proven guilty" not "well, one of these two guys must be guilty, so it doesn't really matter which one we put in jail."

Now, that's not to say that an appeal court can overturn on this basis; the decision about whose testimony was trustworthy resides in this case with the original trial jury. But it is to say that what happened to Davis was (again, if your summary is correct) a miscarriage of justice.

 

[Cicero]

In the movie "The Fugitive," the Chicago cops are being quizzed by the media. One of the reporters asks whether Dr. Kimble (Harrison Ford) might be innocent. Detective Kelly (Ron Dean) makes a pained face and points out that Kimble is NOT innocent, but rather he was convicted in a court of law. "He's guilty!" Detective Kelly declares, condescendingly.

This attitude often evokes a very pained reaction from the audience (as it is supposed to). How could kind, loveable, handsome, intelligent Harrison Ford be "guilty?" Why are the cops so dismissive of the evidence discovered after his escape? Aren't the cops interested in justice?

Long before Harrison Ford took on the role of Richard Kimbell, David Jansen was portraying the character to perfection from 1962-67. In every episode, people he met in different cities fell into two categories: those who wanted to turn him in, and those who believed in his character and helped him escape.

Even before that, James Stewart's 1948 "Call Northside 777" was about a reporter struggling against law enforcement and the political machine to unearth evidence of a convicted man's innocence.

In this movie, Richard Conte's charatcer, the just freed convict, has this exchange with Jimmy Stewart's character.

Conte: "A new suit and ten bucks."


Stewart: "Almost a dollar a year."

Conte: "Oh, look, Frank".

Stewart: "It's a big thing
when a sovereign state admits an error.
Remember this... There aren't many
governments in the world that would do it."


Exposing the imperfections in the American criminal justice system has not produced any viable alternatives.

 

[Brown]

There are plenty of cases where appeals are not justified. But there are numerous examples where the actual evidence clearly outweighs the jury's opinion. It is the latter where a judge needs the right to exercise an intelligent assessment of the evidence and not just say the jury is the ultimate decider as long as the technicalities have been met. It appears to me that Scalia and Thomas think their job is merely to rule on the technicalities and tough tiddly winks if the defendant didn't play the legal game with the proper skill.

This is probably not the thread for it, but the dynamics can be quite bizarre in death penalty cases. In some circumstances, it may be MORE likely that an innocent person--someone who genuinely didn't commit the crime--would be executed than imprisoned.

One of the reasons for this dynamic is that a jury may be asked in a separate hearing following a capital conviction whether the convict should be put to death. (Whether this was the procedure in Georgia, I do not know.) In such a hearing, one of the factors the jury is allowed to consider is the convict's remorse. Now, if the convict is genuinely innocent of the crime--he didn't do it--and he is convicted anyway, he feels extreme indignation and not one iota of remorse. These emotions, genuinely felt and totally appropriate, work against the convict and often compel the jury to issue the most severe punishment.

 

[Yoink]

This is probably not the thread for it, but the dynamics can be quite bizarre in death penalty cases. In some circumstances, it may be MORE likely that an innocent person--someone who genuinely didn't commit the crime--would be executed than imprisoned.

One of the reasons for this dynamic is that a jury may be asked in a separate hearing following a capital conviction whether the convict should be put to death. (Whether this was the procedure in Georgia, I do not know.) In such a hearing, one of the factors the jury is allowed to consider is the convict's remorse. Now, if the convict is genuinely innocent of the crime--he didn't do it--and he is convicted anyway, he feels extreme indignation and not one iota of remorse. These emotions, genuinely felt and totally appropriate, work against the convict and often compel the jury to issue the most severe punishment.

Yeah, I think it should not be permissible for juries or parole boards to consider "remorse." There are numerous cases of people who have been proven beyond any possible doubt to be innocent who at some point "admitted" to the crime simply in the hopes of winning a lighter sentence or an earlier parole. That "admission" then keeps coming back to haunt them.

I've always thought that the whole "remorse" thing was bizarrely miscalculated--the only people it can possible punish are the sincere: either the sincerely innocent or the sincerely unregretful. If you actually committed the crime and have no hopes of being found innocent, what possible reason do you have not to feign as much regret as your acting skills can muster?

 

[Brown]

Long before Harrison Ford took on the role of Richard Kimbell, David Jansen was portraying the character to perfection from 1962-67. In every episode, people he met in different cities fell into two categories: those who wanted to turn him in, and those who believed in his character and helped him escape.

I never watched the TV version of the show, but I REALLY liked the movie of "The Fugitive" (in spite of some of the painful plot holes). One of the reasons I liked the movie was because the two main characters, who were completely at odds with one another, were BOTH "good guys." You had a compelling "good guy vs. good guy" story, and that is rare.

The Chicago cops, who were on the same side as Gerard, were the "bad guys." They were bad because they were not interested in the higher cause of justice. They were intersted in getting a conviction and catching an escaped convict, but they emphatically were NOT interested in correcting a wrongful conviction or admitting errors in their investigation, even errors made in good faith. And part of what made the story good was that Gerard wasn't interested in any of this either, but in order to catch Kimble, Gerard HAD TO revisit the facts of the case so that he could figure out what Kimble's next move might be. After revisiting the facts, Gerard found out that Kimble probably had been wrongly convicted.

At the end of the movie, Kimble is in Gerard's custody, and Kimble knows he has an ally. But Kimble is not a free man, he is at risk of conviction of a number of other serious offenses (escape, assault, theft, etc.) and it is unclear whether he will ever be cleared of his wife's murder.

It is interesting that some of the evidence of Kimble's innocence was available to him at his trial. (Other pieces of evidence, like the phone records that eventually convinced Gerard, were not available.) Would it be a plausible story that Kimble's conviction might stand, since the jury heard most of his evidence and didn't buy it?

 

[skeptical]

Imagine for a second that Davis' sentence was commuted to life without parole. You can bet that the anti-death penalty advocates would dump him like a bad habit and move on to the next convict facing the needle. In addition, do you think any of those people would have cared about this case at all if the original sentence had been life rather than death?

These advocates have little interest in justice for Mark MacPhil or the suffering his family probably still feels.

I suspect there is a great deal of truth in this, given that there it is going to be very difficult to establish actual innocence in this particular case. This is not a case for example where DNA is going to clear anyone.

However, isn't that in itself a really good argument for abolishing the DP or at least significant reforms?*

*I do favor the DP, but only in extraordinary cases and I would implement a bright line rule that it could only be administered in cases where physical evidence linked the defendant to the crime to a scientific certainty, aka DNA, bullet forensics coupled with evidence the person actually fired the gun, etc. I would also require that any defendant facing the DP be provided the service of an extremely competent private defense attorney as opposed to a PD. I realize in many cases this means the DP would not be on the table, which is sort of my point as it has been used inappropriately far too often.

 

[skeptical]

Don't overlook the fact most of the witnesses at first couldn't say they saw Davis and later said they did. That is more telling, IMO, than the buyer's remorse you suggest.

Good point. This further points out the inherent problem of eye witness testimony. It has long been known to be the weakest form of evidence, but it is considered the strongest form of evidence by lay juries.

That is a recipe for injustice in many cases. (whether it happened in this particular case or not)

 

[I Ratant]

I've already referred to the movie "The Fugitive" to illustrate some points.
...

.
Please!
Movies and stage plays and media presentations are SCRIPTED to have the action move in pre-determined ways to pre-determined outcomes.
Reference real life, not play acting!

 

[TragicMonkey]

.
Please!
Movies and stage plays and media presentations are SCRIPTED to have the action move in pre-determined ways to pre-determined outcomes.
Reference real life, not play acting!

Okay. This one time, in The Care Bears Movie III: Return to Love Mountain, Friendship Bear and Hugsalot Bear were coming out of the methadone clinic when Booty Bear shot a homeless bear six times (the classic "sixpack"--ankles, knees, elbows) over a drug debt. When the cop bears showed up they shot Friendship Bear in the head because he's a minority and arrested him. Then when he tried to appeal his murder conviction, they let in hearsay evidence from Stubby Bear, his cellmate. How wrong was that? Everybody knows Stubby was just jealous because Friendship Bear got with the new meat Twink Bear first.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Imagine for a second that Davis' sentence was commuted to life without parole. You can bet that the anti-death penalty advocates would dump him like a bad habit and move on to the next convict facing the needle. In addition, do you think any of those people would have cared about this case at all if the original sentence had been life rather than death?

These advocates have little interest in justice for Mark MacPhil or the suffering his family probably still feels.

The innocence project only takes up cases thoroughly investigated and which have all the indicators of a railroaded defendant. It's a nonprofit organization with a lot of volunteers. They don't have the resources to take up iffy cases.

You really need to look at how many innocent people mostly poor and mostly black that have been exonerated by DNA evidence after serving years in jail including some on death row. The numbers are disturbing.

 

[shuize]

Imagine for a second that Davis' sentence was commuted to life without parole. You can bet that the anti-death penalty advocates would dump him like a bad habit and move on to the next convict facing the needle. In addition, do you think any of those people would have cared about this case at all if the original sentence had been life rather than death?

These advocates have little interest in justice for Mark MacPhil or the suffering his family probably still feels.

Of course not. And, as previously noted, it's funny how Davis' current supporters, the ones who claim there wasn't enough evidence to convict him -- never mind his previous violence that day, the link with the gun, the police officer running past Coles, the cross-examined testimony at trial identifying him, and the fact that he skipped town while Coles went straight to the police -- they're happy to try to pin the murder on Coles with even less evidence.

I'm just not fool enough to think that a DA's summary of the facts is likely to be a sufficient basis on which to form a judgment.

Yeah. That's all it was. Just a summary of the facts. It's not like it was subject to cross-examination and proven at trial to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt and then upheld by nearly 30 federal and state judges on review ....

 

[Yoink]

Of course not. And, as previously noted, it's funny how Davis' current supporters, the ones who claim there wasn't enough evidence to convict him -- never mind his previous violence that day, the link with the gun, the police officer running past Coles, the cross-examined testimony at trial identifying him, and the fact that he skipped town while Coles went straight to the police -- they're happy to try to pin the murder on Coles with even less evidence.

Yeah. That's all it was. Just a summary of the facts. It's not like it was subject to cross-examination and proven at trial to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt and then upheld by nearly 30 federal and state judges on review ....

I'm talking about the document that was linked to; that was a summary of the case against Davis (not a description of the case as originally argued--it includes references to events subsequent to the original trial). You accept every single assertion in that summary as a proven fact (see above, "his previous violence that day, the link with the gun, the police officer running past Coles" etc.) when most of them are precisely what is under debate. The sum total of your argument is, apparently, "he must be guilty because the original trial found him guilty." And yet you know perfectly well that plenty of people have been proven innocent after having been found guilty in far more convincing trials than this one.

The only evidence condemning Davis is eyewitness evidence. We know for a fact that eyewitness evidence is inherently suspect. We know for a fact that the police practices in the investigation were sloppy (the photo they asked witnesses to identify Davis from was the same photo that they had plastered all over the local TV and the local neighborhood as images of the "chief suspect" that they were searching for.

There are clearly reasonable arguments to be made that would give a court of appeal pause before overturning the original conviction, but there is no reasonable argument to be made that this is an open-and-shut case, or that Troy Davis is clearly and obviously guilty.

 

[FlamingMoe]

I'm pretty sure Scalia and Thomas' opinion wasn't based on the merits of the new evidence or how strong it is relative to the original case made by the prosecution. They don't even want any court to consider the new evidence.

I'm curious as to how you think you know what Scalia and Thomas want. The plain fact of the matter is that the law doesn't allow them to meddle in this issue. The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act specifically removes from federal jurisdiction consideration of any matters in state capital cases except clearly erroneous applications of federal law. If there were no such applications of federal law (and I haven't seen any claims that there were), federal courts have no authority to step in. Period.

This is the law. If you don't like it, you are more than free to contact your representative and senator in an attempt to remedy the situation. I admit, I'm not thrilled with the possible outcomes of AEDPA either. But it is the law.