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Merged Remember the West Memphis 3?

Well there's certainly plenty of leeway for that. Since those of Rolfe's comments that I've glanced it, when not either completely wrong or slanted, are at best facile.
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lane99 said:
Well there's certainly plenty of leeway for that. Since those of Rolfe's comments that I've glanced it, when not either completely wrong or slanted, are at best facile.
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Since her arguments are so demonstrably facile, I'm sure you can quickly dismantle them, right? You wouldn't post just to attack another poster, would you?
 
lane99 said:
Well there's certainly plenty of leeway for that. Since those of Rolfe's comments that I've glanced it, when not either completely wrong or slanted, are at best facile.
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Feel free to post any errors of fact she's made.
 
I didn't know about the defamation suit. Utter madness to proceed with something like that if you're really guilty, but it's not as if it hasn't been done before (see "Jonathan Aitken").

I'd quite like to see that film, but I doubt if it will be shown here. The case has had almost no exposure here and I only know about it because of the threads in the forum.

The cover-your-ass attitude of the authorities after the railroading became impossible to cover up is appalling, but pretty much par for the course just about anywhere as far as I can see. The system looks seriously screwed up, but then I look at our own system and see things that are getting on for comparable. I mentioned the apparent pressure on Abdelbaset al-Megrahi to drop his appeal before being sent home under the compassionate release provisions earlier in the thread. (Although proceedings have been started for a fresh appeal in that case, posthumously.)

What does surprise me is the number of people without a dog in the fight who simply sail on under the delusion that everyone who has ever been convicted is factually guilty, and that anyone who thinks otherwise can be sneered at without actually bothering to cite any specifics. Not really what one would expect on a sceptics forum.

Rolfe.
 
I'm reminded of a 'discussion' elsewhere about Timothy Evans (a Welshman railroaded to the gallows in 1950 for the supposed murder of his wife) where someone maintains that it's not reasonable to assume he was innocent, just that there was doubt over his guilt.
 
catsmate1 said:
I'm reminded of a 'discussion' elsewhere about Timothy Evans (a Welshman railroaded to the gallows in 1950 for the supposed murder of his wife) where someone maintains that it's not reasonable to assume he was innocent, just that there was doubt over his guilt.
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Hmmm this an extract from that wiki

and that they interrogated the accused over the course of late evening and early morning hours to his physical and emotional detriment, a man already in a highly emotional state. Evans also stated in court that he was threatened with violence by the police, and it is likely that they coerced Evans to his false confession.

False confessions are a disaster, look at this one

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teina_Pora

There is no chance this poor sod had any part in this crime.
 
That's what got Stefan Kiszko as well. He wasn't the brightest crayon in the box, he was in his early 20s but mentally much younger, and they told him after a long interrogation that if he signed he could go home to his mother. He said he signed because he believed that when the police investigated the crime properly and found out that he had nothing to do with it, then it wouldn't matter what he had signed. He spent 16 years in jail, staying in jail long after he was eligible for parole because in order to be awarded parole he would have had to admit guilt.

They identified and convicted the man who actually murdered Lesley Moleseed (Ronald Castree) over 30 years after the murder, through DNA evidence. But Castree had 32 years of the prime of his life as a free man, while Stefan Kiszko's life was completely ruined. He died not long after he was released.

Rolfe.
 
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More and more cases with multiple common elements leading to injustice. The Alford plea, the prisoner's dilemma. Show remorse for what you didn't do.
And the institutions seldom apologise.
 
Rolfe said:
What does surprise me is the number of people without a dog in the fight who simply sail on under the delusion that everyone who has ever been convicted is factually guilty, and that anyone who thinks otherwise can be sneered at without actually bothering to cite any specifics. Not really what one would expect on a sceptics forum.
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Could be worse. We could have people believing that everyone who was merely arrested is factually guilty.

But luckily former US Attorney General Edwin Meese doesn't post here.
Meese was asked in an interview with U.S. News and World Report whether suspects in criminal cases should have the right to a lawyer during police questioning. His reply: ''Suspects who are innocent of a crime should. But the thing is, you don't have many suspects who are innocent of a crime. That's contradictory. If a person is innocent of a crime, then he is not a suspect.'' I.e., anyone the police have arrested is presumed to be guilty. Otherwise, why would they have arrested him? Next case.​
 
That's a whole other (though intimately related) can of worms. I think many trials are not conducted on the principle of innocent until proven guilty, for more or less that reason. The jury can't imagine that the police would have arrested someone unless there was good evidence. They also see the prosecutors as simply doing their job in an unbiassed manner while of course the defence team have to make up some sort of story to get their client off.

Paradoxically, I think the effect may be worse in cases where the evidence is in fact lacking. Jurors wonder why the police indicted the defendent on such flimsy evidence, and may subconsciously conclude that they themselves may be being stupid and "not getting it". Or maybe it's just "well if the police say so it must be right, who am I to argue with them?" Witness the number of jurors who believed beyond reasonable doubt that Sion Jenkins had killed Billie-Jo. I mean, how could any rational human being come to that conclusion on the facts of the case?

Rolfe.
 
Samson said:
More and more cases with multiple common elements leading to injustice. The Alford plea, the prisoner's dilemma. Show remorse for what you didn't do.
And the institutions seldom apologise.
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Apologise?
Charge them for accommodation at Her Maj's pleasure, more like.
 
That has actually happened, hasn't it? Didn't they try to deduct 16 years of board and lodging from Stefan Kiszko's compensation payment?

And he only got a payment at all because he was deemed to be "clearly innocent". Other who are freed after winning an appeal showing there was really no case against them in the first place have been denied compensation on the ground that they can't prove they didn't do it. (I think Sion Jenkins almost can, but almost wasn't deemed to be good enough and he didn't get anything. Barry George also got nothing because he didn't quite have an unbreakable alibi for the murder, despite the original evidence against him having evaporated.)

Rolfe.
 
Rolfe said:
That's a whole other (though intimately related) can of worms. I think many trials are not conducted on the principle of innocent until proven guilty, for more or less that reason. The jury can't imagine that the police would have arrested someone unless there was good evidence. They also see the prosecutors as simply doing their job in an unbiassed manner while of course the defence team have to make up some sort of story to get their client off.

Paradoxically, I think the effect may be worse in cases where the evidence is in fact lacking. Jurors wonder why the police indicted the defendent on such flimsy evidence, and may subconsciously conclude that they themselves may be being stupid and "not getting it". Or maybe it's just "well if the police say so it must be right, who am I to argue with them?" Witness the number of jurors who believed beyond reasonable doubt that Sion Jenkins had killed Billie-Jo. I mean, how could any rational human being come to that conclusion on the facts of the case?

Rolfe.
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Paradoxically also, the effect may be worse where the defendant is white. That sounds like an outrageous statement when you consider how many black men are imprisoned in the US, but according to the Innocence Project, that is mainly due to coercive plea bargaining and poor legal representation. When you iron out cases which have ended in plea bargains, and look purely at cases where the defendant has opted for a jury trial, black defendants are more likely to be acquitted. I suppose because when jurors ask that question "why would he have been arrested if he didn't do it?" there is a ready made answer, based on a very real history of racist policing.
 
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