Merged Remember the West Memphis 3?

[Schrodinger's Cat]

[/I]

Oh - well yeah, that's all I mentioned so I do see the problem. There's also being convicted by a jury. Now granted, sometimes juries wrongly convict; but a judge didn't throw out this case and another jury never reversed the verdict. So, they were convicted, then released from jail on a guilty plea. That's a whole lot of "guilty" flying around.

ETA: This wasn't a satanic-panic case. This was, what, '95? '96?

Honestly, I just think you're lacking a skeptical approach to the justice system. You seem to honestly believe that these things just work themselves out. That if there's evidence that you're wrongly convicted, a judge will just throw out your case and you're free to go. That's just not the way it works. Cases don't get thrown out nearly as easily as you seem to think they are.

An example of this is the "repressed memory" cases of the 80s and 90s. It had become popular for psychotherapists to use hypnosis and drugs to get patients to remember forgotten "repressed memories." This often resulted from a patient presenting to a therapist with symptoms, which could be symptoms of sexual assault. The therapist would then assume that sexual assault was the root cause, and try and lead the patient to remember said assault. The problem was there are plenty of mental health ailments which can result from sexual assault, but can also arise outside of sexual assault. A big example of this is eating disorders.

But the repressed memory therapy was debunked and discredited. Studies on the subject could find absolutely no evidence that people who had been traumatized were able to simply wipe these memories completely from their brain, then able to recall it under hypnosis or drugs. It was also show that repressed memory therapy could easily result in planting false memories into patients, making them believe abuse had occured when none had.

Parents, teachers, etc, were jailed during this time period based only on testimony of victims while undergoing repressed memory therapy. When repressed memory therapy was debunked, yes, some of these cases were overturned and the accused set free. Some even then sued the original therapists who responsible for their convictions. But some were not. There are still people, mostly men, in jail for decades based only on information obtained while under since debunked therapy sessions, with no corroberating evidence.

Your belief that if you are falsely accused and there is no actual evidence against you, you won't be convicted, or if you are, you'll be set free, is a lovely story that sometimes does happen, but "a jury found them guilty and a judge didn't throw out the case" is not evidence to me that they did it. ACTUAL evidence that they did it is evidence to me. So far the only reasoning you are able to provide is that "other people think they did it" which is not actually evidence.

As for the "satanic panic" you're right, this was in 1993, not the 80s when the satanic panic was at its height. But I think the label still applies considering that the main argument for why they were guilty was satanists committed the murder, and these kids wore black, so they must be satanists.

 

[Checkmite]

[/I]

Honestly, I just think you're lacking a skeptical approach to the justice system. You seem to honestly believe that these things just work themselves out. That if there's evidence that you're wrongly convicted, a judge will just throw out your case and you're free to go. That's just not the way it works. Cases don't get thrown out nearly as easily as you seem to think they are.

An example of this is the "repressed memory" cases of the 80s and 90s. It had become popular for psychotherapists to use hypnosis and drugs to get patients to remember forgotten "repressed memories." This often resulted from a patient presenting to a therapist with symptoms, which could be symptoms of sexual assault. The therapist would then assume that sexual assault was the root cause, and try and lead the patient to remember said assault. The problem was there are plenty of mental health ailments which can result from sexual assault, but can also arise outside of sexual assault. A big example of this is eating disorders.

But the repressed memory therapy was debunked and discredited. Studies on the subject could find absolutely no evidence that people who had been traumatized were able to simply wipe these memories completely from their brain, then able to recall it under hypnosis or drugs. It was also show that repressed memory therapy could easily result in planting false memories into patients, making them believe abuse had occured when none had.

Parents, teachers, etc, were jailed during this time period based only on testimony of victims while undergoing repressed memory therapy. When repressed memory therapy was debunked, yes, some of these cases were overturned and the accused set free. Some even then sued the original therapists who responsible for their convictions. But some were not. There are still people, mostly men, in jail for decades based only on information obtained while under since debunked therapy sessions, with no corroberating evidence.

Your belief that if you are falsely accused and there is no actual evidence against you, you won't be convicted, or if you are, you'll be set free, is a lovely story that sometimes does happen, but "a jury found them guilty and a judge didn't throw out the case" is not evidence to me that they did it. ACTUAL evidence that they did it is evidence to me. So far the only reasoning you are able to provide is that "other people think they did it" which is not actually evidence.

How is this not an effective argument that nobody should be jailed for any crime they're convicted of?

 

[Rolfe]

Because I don't see any suggestion that people with actual credible evidence against them shouldn't be jailed.

The difficulty of getting an unjust conviction reversed is enormous. The hurdles are high and many. Even defendants with an excellent appeal case are vulnerable to deals like the one we're discussing.

Just hope you never end up railroaded into jail for something you didn't do. If it can happen to Sion Jenkins and Sally Clark, it can happen to anybody.

Rolfe.

 

[Checkmite]

Because I don't see any suggestion that people with actual credible evidence against them shouldn't be jailed.

The difficulty of getting an unjust conviction reversed is enormous. The hurdles are high and many. Even defendants with an excellent appeal case are vulnerable to deals like the one we're discussing.

Just hope you never end up railroaded into jail for something you didn't do. If it can happen to Sion Jenkins and Sally Clark, it can happen to anybody.

Rolfe.

Fair enough. And if I ever find myself in that situation and willingly decide to enter a guilty plea, I'm not going to go objecting to people thinking I'm guilty. That's what comes with pleading guilty.

 

[Rolfe]

And if you take a technical guilty plea in order to gain your immediate freedom, which comes with the ability to continue to claim you are innocent - you won't bother making that claim?

You know, there are quite a lot of nuances to all this that are whooshing right over your head.

Rolfe.

 

[Checkmite]

Oh, sure I will; I just won't be offended if some people don't buy it.

 

[Rolfe]

Not everybody is going to follow the nuances of what just happened. It's inevitable.

The bottom line is that if the prosecution had had any confidence at all in their ability to sustain that conviction in the appeal court, the deal would never have seen the light of day. Even as it was, one of the three still wanted to go through with the court process and clear his name completely, but was persuaded otherwise through compassion for the one who was on death row.

If you can't work it out from that, then I'm sorry for you.

Rolfe.

 

[PhantomWolf]

Oh - well yeah, that's all I mentioned so I do see the problem. There's also being convicted by a jury. Now granted, sometimes juries wrongly convict; but a judge didn't throw out this case and another jury never reversed the verdict. So, they were convicted, then released from jail on a guilty plea. That's a whole lot of "guilty" flying around.

This is a rather circular argument.

The court convicted them so they must have been guilty, and we know they must have been guilty because the court convicted them.

Reminds be of Athur Allen Thomas. He was found guilty of double homicide not by one, but by two juries, the second after the Court of Appeal ordered a retrial.

He was finally released after a commision of inquiry found that the police had fabricated the evidence against him and he was pardoned.

By your standard, he must really have been guilty because no court ever overturned the second Jury decision.

 

[Checkmite]

This is a rather circular argument.

The court convicted them so they must have been guilty, and we know they must have been guilty because the court convicted them.

That's not a circular argument; that's the same argument repeated with the subject and predicate's positions switched.

At any rate, somebody sure overturned the second jury's conviction, because they released him.

 

[Checkmite]

Not everybody is going to follow the nuances of what just happened. It's inevitable.

The bottom line is that if the prosecution had had any confidence at all in their ability to sustain that conviction in the appeal court, the deal would never have seen the light of day. Even as it was, one of the three still wanted to go through with the court process and clear his name completely, but was persuaded otherwise through compassion for the one who was on death row.

If you can't work it out from that, then I'm sorry for you.

Rolfe.

No, I "worked it out". It merely didn't convince me of their innocence.

 

[PhantomWolf]

That's not a circular argument; that's the same argument repeated with the subject and predicate's positions switched.

That pretty much what a circular arguement is, one that has a premise the same as it's conclusion.

At any rate, somebody sure overturned the second jury's conviction, because they released him.

A Pardon isn't an overturning of a conviction, it's closer to a forgiveness for and excusing.

 

[Lamuella]

At any rate, somebody sure overturned the second jury's conviction, because they released him.

A pardon does not vacate the previous court's decision, it merely nullifies the previous court's sentence.

Checkmite, can I ask how familiar you actually are with the WM3 case?

 

[Rolfe]

It would appear that he's not familiar. His argument seems to consist almost entirely of observing that a court in the 1990s returned a guilty verdict, and the defendants agreed to a plea bargain (to spare one of their number from having to spend any longer on death row) rather than go through more court hearings to establish their innocence.

The type of argument I respect in cases like this concentrates on the evidence. I haven't seen any post of Checkmite's where he demonstrates any familiarity at all with the evidence.

Rolfe.

 

[Didaktylos]

The trouble is that just about every judicial system in the world is run according to Lord Denning's principle, even if most of those who administer them aren't willing to be quite as blatant as him in admitting it.

 

[Antiquehunter]

Checkmite - I'm just curious. If you are convinced that all the 'guilty flying about' implies that these three men are indeed guilty - then are you bothered by the miscarriage of justice?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

An observation on reversing convictions

With respect to possible miscarriages of justice and the possibility of exoneration, consider this: “Even the ones we do take, it’s like un-baking a cake. When there’s a conviction it’s the hardest thing in the world to undo,” [Idaho Innocence Project director Gregory] Hampikian said.

 

[Rolfe]

Somebody is always going to sit there sagely muttering about there being no smoke without fire. In spite of the fact that smoke can easily occur without fire.

There are even people who still maintain Sally Clark killed her babies. Including a prominent Australian sceptic (Peter Bowditch), apparently purely on the basis of the case having been used by anti-vax activists at one stage.

You can't win them all.

Rolfe.

 

[Schrodinger's Cat]

Somebody is always going to sit there sagely muttering about there being no smoke without fire. In spite of the fact that smoke can easily occur without fire.

There are even people who still maintain Sally Clark killed her babies. Including a prominent Australian sceptic (Peter Bowditch), apparently purely on the basis of the case having been used by anti-vax activists at one stage.

You can't win them all.

Rolfe.

Indeed, one need only think of the case of Margaret Kelly Michaels. She was a day care worker whose case was thrown out on appeal due to the fact that the evidence against her was garnered from taped interviews with very very young children and toddlers, in which the interviewers clearly lead the children in what to say, reward the children for saying they were abused, and threaten them (i.e. you can't stop the interview go home if you keep denying it) when they initially say no abuse happened until the kids finally said that yes, it did happened. The allegations are filled with accusations of acts that were physically and financially impossible for Margaret to have performed in the limited time she had with children at day care with no one else seeing her do these things. The fact that she was even convicted in the first place just shows how rational thinking can go right out the door when you're dealing with allegations of violence against children.

Even after she was exonerated, there were people who still were convinced of her guilt. I had read an interview with Margaret in which she stated that her entire ordeal would be so much more bearable if even a single parent or person involved on the case simply apologized to her and told her they had been wrong, but that just never happened. The parents instead were uniformly outraged when her conviction was overturned.

 

[Mark6]

The trouble is that just about every judicial system in the world is run according to Lord Denning's principle, even if most of those who administer them aren't willing to be quite as blatant as him in admitting it.

What exactly is "Lord Denning's principle"? I googled it, but all I found was how "principle" is (or is not) applicable here and there, not the definition of what it means.

 

[Rolfe]

There has been a persistent meme in this forum that court verdicts should be assumed to reflect reality, and any suggestion that a verdict might have been mistaken is equivalent to belief in the existence of Bigfoot. I've lost count of the number of threads which have been infested with (usually the same, relatively few) posters loudly declaring that all discussions of possible miscarriage of justice should be moved to the CT forum.

The previous West Memphis Three thread was one of them. I'm quite encouraged now to realise that most posters here understand the implications of this peculiar plea bargain for what they are. Most of those insisting that these men must be guilty because a jury said so once upon a time have left the thread, I suspect having realised that their position was now logically untenable.

There's always someone left who takes the "argument from authority" to the ultimate extreme though.

Rolfe.