Debra Milke conviction overturned

I just thought of an idea.

How about a law... A law where a person cannot become a US prosecutor unless they have worked a certain amount of time, working to free the wrongfully convicted.
 
Babbylonian said:
Using the liar may not have been their choice. If the cops wouldn't get rid of the liar and continued to use him to investigate cases, all the prosecution can do is use him.
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OR not.

What does it say for your case when it hinges on the testimony of someone you know is questionable? Is that the best you can do?

Maybe, or maybe, despite everything, they believed him. It doesn't make what they did in any way right, but some people are convincing liars. In a case like this where a 4-year-old kid was murdered, people can lose their perspective. Just look at how nuts people got (and in some cases remain) over Casey Anthony.
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Whether they believed that _this time_ he was telling the truth is immaterial. What matters is that you know that he has been dishonest even in the past. How can you in good conscience think someone should be killed knowing that your entire case, apparently, depends on his word?
 
pgwenthold said:
Whether they believed that _this time_ he was telling the truth is immaterial. What matters is that you know that he has been dishonest even in the past. How can you in good conscience think someone should be killed knowing that your entire case, apparently, depends on his word?
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You've made an assumption that is entirely wrong. I oppose capital punishment absolutely and without exception precisely because even the tiniest possibility of a wrongful conviction makes it unacceptable to me.

The only purpose of my post was to offer a potential explanation for the prosecution's actions besides them being "evil." They were still absolutely wrong but I think that once you call someone in this type of situation evil it can let the system as a whole off the hook, as if these lawyers are rare exceptions rather than potentially indicative of a more widespread problem.

Frankly, the idea that the current authorities would even consider either appealing the ruling (and that's exactly what the Arizona AG says he's going to do) or retrying this woman under the circumstances (an obviously wrongful conviction and 22 years already spent in prison under a death sentence) is a clear indication that there's something wrong with the system as a whole.
 
Does anyone think she is guilty? I don't. But it does seem a bit weird. Two friends just decide to shoot a kid in the head. It almost makes more sense with her involved.... Though not much more.
 
I don't know. But it doesn't matter whether innocence can be proved beyond reasonable doubt or not. If the prosecution can't prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt, then the rest of it is just opinion and gossip.

Rolfe.
 
Caper said:
Does anyone think she is guilty? I don't. But it does seem a bit weird. Two friends just decide to shoot a kid in the head. It almost makes more sense with her involved.... Though not much more.
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It's a puzzling crime. Milke's roommate (Jim Styers) took the boy shopping, but ended up shooting him in the desert. Styers had an accomplice, Roger Scott. Styers called Milke and reported that the kid had disappeared from the mall. When police investigated, Scott caved under interrogation, led police to the body, and implicated Milke as well as Styers.

The motive is murky. Styers had an unrequited sexual interest in Milke. She had just landed a better job, and was about to move into her own place. Maybe Styers thought he would have a better chance with the kid out of the way.

The only "evidence" against Milke is Scott's initial statement (he refused to testify against her) as well as the statement of a serial liar who claims Milke told him a story that was 180 degrees from what she has consistently, for more than two decades, told every other person who will listen.

Everything about the history leading up to this murder supports the view that Debra Milke would never have harmed her kid. She's innocent and they need to let her go.
 
pgwenthold said:
So not only the did the prosecution get a conviction knowingly using a liar as a key witness, they went after (and got) the friggin death penalty?

This is not simply unscrupulous DAs, these folks are bloody evil. They clearly have no conscience at all to do something like that.
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Are they on some kind of provision system?

Are promotions based on number of convictions, or do they need to keep up the number of cases/investigations that lead to a conviction?
 
Toke said:
Are they on some kind of provision system?

Are promotions based on number of convictions, or do they need to keep up the number of cases/investigations that lead to a conviction?
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Election System.

Flashy, high-visibility trials ... especially when elections are coming up ...make for good campaign advertising. More than a few DAs have seen to it that they manage some sort of conspicuous success carefully timed to convince the electorate, no matter how unethical the victory may be. After all, they're only doing it for the good of the public. Right?
 
I remember this case when it was news. Or in the news. Or what passes/passed as news even back then. I was having a long distance relationship with someone in Phoenix and that was all everyone talked about. The papers printed mug shots, played up her drug background (meth is bad but it was minimal at best), trashed the people she kept company with, where she lived, the whole tawdry story. Shock and horror was expressed that the boy hadn't been taken away from her earlier or this would never have happened.

I'm thinking now it must have been a slow news period and the story was just too hard to resist. It wasn't like a little boy hadn't been taken from a mall store before. See Walsh, Adam.
 
Toke said:
Are they on some kind of provision system?

Are promotions based on number of convictions, or do they need to keep up the number of cases/investigations that lead to a conviction?
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The basic dynamic is the same all over the world. The authorities won't admit to a mistake, no matter what. The lengths to which they will go are nothing short of mind-boggling.

For sheer absurdity, I always cite the Jerry Hobbs case. His 8 year old daughter and her playmate were killed in a Chicago suburb in 2005. Hobbs was arrested and charged. He seemed like a plausible suspect, an ex-con with a violent history. The police got him to confess that he killed his daughter because he was mad at her for disobeying him, and he killed the playmate to silence a witness.

But... there was a problem. They found semen on the body of one of these kids, and the DNA did not match Hobbs.

Prosecutor: "Well, people have sex in the woods all the time, and so obviously this kid came in contact with some random semen before Hobbs killed her."

Then, a couple of years ago, a man was arrested for a sex crime, and his DNA was entered into the national database. It matched the semen found on the little girl. It turned out this guy lived in the area at the time of the murders, could not possibly have known Hobbs who had just gotten out of prison, but knew the brother of the girl who was killed along with Hobbs's daughter.

So, they had to let Hobbs go. But did they admit the whole thing was a mistake? Hell no. The prosecutor simply acknowledged that he probably couldn't get a conviction.

His new story: "Well, the semen donor knew the victim's brother. Obviously when he was at her house, he must have masturbated and left his semen lying around, the kid got it on her hands and transferred it to her genitals when she went to the bathroom, and that is why it was there when Hobbs killed her."

I wish I was lying. I wish you could Google this and not find it, and come back and tell me I'm making this whole thing up.

But I'm not.

John Douglas, my crime-fighting hero, has just published a new book called Law and Disorder. No one will ever accuse Douglas of false humility. He is good and he knows it. But he is also a guy who is fascinated by his own mistakes and flawed assumptions and writes about them at length. Examining them is part of his investigative process, part of what makes him so good.

He, like many experts, is disturbed by how many wrongful convictions have been uncovered in recent years. He was involved in the West Memphis Three case, where superstition and junk science created a travesty that went on for almost two decades. Here is how he sums up the problem with pig-headed prosecutors:

As Steve Braga commented to Mark Olshaker, "When Dennis Riordan brought in Werner Spitz and John Douglas and Michael Baden and Vince DiMaio, among others - the world's leading experts - and they say, "Your coroner got it wrong. These weren't knife wounds. We all agree. Six of us independently agree these aren't knife wounds but animal predation," then somebody on the prosecution side has to be stand-up enough to say, 'Okay, let's take this seriously' - not 'Oh my God, how are we going to defend against this? Let's keep fighting.' At some point, you've got to recognize a mistake."

Unfortunately, in many if not most cases, they don't recognize mistakes. They do everything in their power to keep innocent people locked up, until and unless new information demolishes their claim or a higher authority intervenes.
 
This should be treated as murdering someone 21 years before they died naturally, and should be treated as intentional, calculated murder under color of law. There is no possible redress. She's too old to have another baby, so in fact she has been in a sense exterminated as far as the future.

Unspeakable.
 
Why, Why, Why do they always do this! AZ AG Tom Horne is appealing. Why can't the authorities ever agree that an injustice was done and maybe even - apologize! It is the absolute norm to deny that a miscarriage of justice has happened and drag things out as far as possible.

There are a few exception like Michael Morton, who recently received an apology from the Texas state senate, but even then the prosecutor only apologized for what he went through in a hearing and not his own role. http://www.statesman.com/news/news/texas-senate-honors-morton/nWqy3/

ACTION ALERT: Tell Arizona AG Tom Horne not to appeal overturning of Debra Milke's wrongful conviction

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/...turning-of-Debra-Milke-s-wrongful-conviction#
 
Draca said:
Why, Why, Why do they always do this! AZ AG Tom Horne is appealing. Why can't the authorities ever agree that an injustice was done and maybe even - apologize! It is the absolute norm to deny that a miscarriage of justice has happened and drag things out as far as possible.

There are a few exception like Michael Morton, who recently received an apology from the Texas state senate, but even then the prosecutor only apologized for what he went through in a hearing and not his own role. http://www.statesman.com/news/news/texas-senate-honors-morton/nWqy3/

ACTION ALERT: Tell Arizona AG Tom Horne not to appeal overturning of Debra Milke's wrongful conviction

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/...turning-of-Debra-Milke-s-wrongful-conviction#
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There seems to be a strange belief in the LE agencies that people will only trust them if they are seen as infallible, thus they can't admit to making any errors. Sadly people would actually trust them more if they did admit when they screwed up because we already know that they are human and humans make errors.
 
Charlie Wilkes said:
The basic dynamic is the same all over the world. The authorities won't admit to a mistake, no matter what. The lengths to which they will go are nothing short of mind-boggling.

For sheer absurdity, I always cite the Jerry Hobbs case. His 8 year old daughter and her playmate were killed in a Chicago suburb in 2005. Hobbs was arrested and charged. He seemed like a plausible suspect, an ex-con with a violent history. The police got him to confess that he killed his daughter because he was mad at her for disobeying him, and he killed the playmate to silence a witness.

But... there was a problem. They found semen on the body of one of these kids, and the DNA did not match Hobbs.

Prosecutor: "Well, people have sex in the woods all the time, and so obviously this kid came in contact with some random semen before Hobbs killed her."

Then, a couple of years ago, a man was arrested for a sex crime, and his DNA was entered into the national database. It matched the semen found on the little girl. It turned out this guy lived in the area at the time of the murders, could not possibly have known Hobbs who had just gotten out of prison, but knew the brother of the girl who was killed along with Hobbs's daughter.

So, they had to let Hobbs go. But did they admit the whole thing was a mistake? Hell no. The prosecutor simply acknowledged that he probably couldn't get a conviction.

His new story: "Well, the semen donor knew the victim's brother. Obviously when he was at her house, he must have masturbated and left his semen lying around, the kid got it on her hands and transferred it to her genitals when she went to the bathroom, and that is why it was there when Hobbs killed her."

I wish I was lying. I wish you could Google this and not find it, and come back and tell me I'm making this whole thing up.

But I'm not.

John Douglas, my crime-fighting hero, has just published a new book called Law and Disorder. No one will ever accuse Douglas of false humility. He is good and he knows it. But he is also a guy who is fascinated by his own mistakes and flawed assumptions and writes about them at length. Examining them is part of his investigative process, part of what makes him so good.

He, like many experts, is disturbed by how many wrongful convictions have been uncovered in recent years. He was involved in the West Memphis Three case, where superstition and junk science created a travesty that went on for almost two decades. Here is how he sums up the problem with pig-headed prosecutors:

As Steve Braga commented to Mark Olshaker, "When Dennis Riordan brought in Werner Spitz and John Douglas and Michael Baden and Vince DiMaio, among others - the world's leading experts - and they say, "Your coroner got it wrong. These weren't knife wounds. We all agree. Six of us independently agree these aren't knife wounds but animal predation," then somebody on the prosecution side has to be stand-up enough to say, 'Okay, let's take this seriously' - not 'Oh my God, how are we going to defend against this? Let's keep fighting.' At some point, you've got to recognize a mistake."

Unfortunately, in many if not most cases, they don't recognize mistakes. They do everything in their power to keep innocent people locked up, until and unless new information demolishes their claim or a higher authority intervenes.
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You don't know the amount of rage you just filled me with.

It's funny you should bring up John Douglas.

They were just talking about his book on the True Murder Podcast.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/dan-zupansky1
 
PhantomWolf said:
There seems to be a strange belief in the LE agencies that people will only trust them if they are seen as infallible, thus they can't admit to making any errors. Sadly people would actually trust them more if they did admit when they screwed up because we already know that they are human and humans make errors.
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Exactly. Why is it so difficult to admit a collective mistake? An individual mistake? Take steps to correct them and people will trust you more, and in fact they'll have more reason to!
 
Babbylonian said:
A little legal pedantry from someone who's not a lawyer: The Brady Bill was a gun control act of Congress. A Brady violation during a criminal case means that the prosecution failed to reveal potentially exculpatory evidence to the defense and has nothing to do with the wounded White House Press Secretary. :D
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Thank you, I was very confused by the mention of the Brady Bill and what it had to do with this case.
 
O/T for this thread but this same type of lying, overly aggressive pursuit of a suspect is what got the Austin police dept. in trouble with the Yogurt Shop murders back in 1991.
 
The Ryan Ferguson case comes to mind after hearing that AZ AG is determined to appeal Debra Milke's overturned conviction.

There is literally NO evidence against Ryan Ferguson. He was convicted by two witnesses who have both since recanted. Now there is nothing against him at all, but Judge Dan Green in a recent decision denied him a new trial. :( It was an absolutely reprehensible decision.

Judge denies Ryan Ferguson habeas corpus
http://kbia.org/post/judge-denies-ryan-ferguson-habeas-corpus

pdf of ruling
http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/kbia/files/201210/ferguson_0.pdf


Here's a thread on the Ryan Ferguson case. I wish the thread title was changed.

Have you ever had a cop in your face:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=153197&highlight=ryan+ferguson
 
KatieG said:
O/T for this thread but this same type of lying, overly aggressive pursuit of a suspect is what got the Austin police dept. in trouble with the Yogurt Shop murders back in 1991.
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That was a false confession case right?
 
PhantomWolf said:
There seems to be a strange belief in the LE agencies that people will only trust them if they are seen as infallible, thus they can't admit to making any errors. Sadly people would actually trust them more if they did admit when they screwed up because we already know that they are human and humans make errors.
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tyr_13 said:
Exactly. Why is it so difficult to admit a collective mistake? An individual mistake? Take steps to correct them and people will trust you more, and in fact they'll have more reason to!
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I agree completely! The ability to admit to and correct mistakes is a huge justice system problem. The appeals system in the US takes forever to correct any mistakes. Not an uncommon problem in most countries. If there was a better review and correction system there would probably be a lot more trust in the judicial system. There are just far too many horrendous and even ridiculous cases of wrongful conviction.
 
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