Merged Remember the West Memphis 3?

[John Jones]

I lost interest in the case since the plea deal. It's a shame we may never know the results of the DNA testing. it may have put this debate to rest.

Apparently not. The DNA evidence shows hair consistent with Terry Hobbs, and David Jacoby were found on and around the dead boys, and that no DNA evidence tied the WM3 to the crime scene.

But that's not even what led to the Alford Pleas: It was the patently obvious jury misconduct in the Echols/Baldwin trial, together with the likely finding of judicial misconduct by His Honor the Circus Court Judge David Burnett in the same trial.

 

[Babbylonian]

Ask yourself why the state of Arkansas would ever let anyone on death row, and 2 lifers pack their bags, and walk free the next day.

Because no state can risk disappointing Edward Scissorhands.

 

[mojoe]

If that was a question, then yes. The WM3 were railroaded. I have studied the evidence for 20 years.

Ask yourself why the state of Arkansas would ever let anyone on death row, and 2 lifers pack their bags, and walk free the next day.

I'm not talking about other aspects of the case. I'm specifically asking about the alibi. You may not like that site but again it quotes trial transcripts and interviews. It's also in Paradise Lost. I posted about the alibi not to get into a debate about it but for information purposes.

As for the DNA from what I remember ( and its been awhile so I may wrong ) there was DNA that similar to the defendants, victims, and Hobbs. Similar meaning it included a large portion of the population and wasn't specific to any of them. It didn't definitively put them at the crime scene but it didn't exonerate them either. I thought there were still some items out for testing when the deal was struck.

 

[mojoe]

Apparently not. The DNA evidence shows hair consistent with Terry Hobbs, and David Jacoby were found on and around the dead boys, and that no DNA evidence tied the WM3 to the crime scene.

But that's not even what led to the Alford Pleas: It was the patently obvious jury misconduct in the Echols/Baldwin trial, together with the likely finding of judicial misconduct by His Honor the Circus Court Judge David Burnett in the same trial.

What led to the Alford Deal was Damien Echols lawyer.

tjsl.edu/the-jeffersonian/news/2011/09/west-memphis-three-and-their-alford-plea

 

[John Jones]

What led to the Alford Deal was Damien Echols lawyer.

tjsl.edu/the-jeffersonian/news/2011/09/west-memphis-three-and-their-alford-plea

If that contradicts something I said, please explain how.

Is this you? "djk@wm3truth dot com"

 

[mojoe]

If that contradicts something I said, please explain how.

Is this you? "djk@wm3truth dot com"

You imply that the prosecution went to the defense. That's not true. The defense went to the prosecution and their reasons had nothing to do with jury misconduct or judicial misbehavior.

I posted about the alibi because I believed you were misinformed. I still think you are and you have not posted any links to support your position.

I'm not connected to that site at all. I do have an opinion on their guilt or innocence but my real interest is in the interaction between nons and supporters. I find it interesting that they see the same evidence and interpret it so differently. I have been reading various non and supporter sites, including Callahans, since before the second documentary. After reading all sides I came to my own conclusion. As I said before my interest ended with deal.

 

[Strawberry]

You imply that the prosecution went to the defense. That's not true. The defense went to the prosecution and their reasons had nothing to do with jury misconduct or judicial misbehavior.

I posted about the alibi because I believed you were misinformed. I still think you are and you have not posted any links to support your position.

I'm not connected to that site at all. I do have an opinion on their guilt or innocence but my real interest is in the interaction between nons and supporters. I find it interesting that they see the same evidence and interpret it so differently. I have been reading various non and supporter sites, including Callahans, since before the second documentary. After reading all sides I came to my own conclusion. As I said before my interest ended with deal.

The part in bold is a misleading statement. The defense did not go to the prosecution with an offer of an Alford plea. They approached the prosecutor to suggest skipping the evidentiary hearing and moving straight to trial using the evidence of juror misconduct as a bargaining chip. The prosecutor countered by offering to let them go with time served in return for a guilty plea. After some wrangling, the two sides settled on an Alford plea, where the defendants maintain their innocence but concede that the prosecution has evidence that may lead a jury to convict.

 

[Tolls]

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?

I was thinking of the Birmingham Six. There were a few around that time (2001 ish?) with Blunkett (who possibly rates as the worst Home Secretary we've ever had) arguing that it was only fair to charge people for time spent in prison if it turned out they shouldn't be there.

 

[Desert Fox]

Here is another angle, I have yet to see the movie which gets good reviews.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz-film-festival/news/article.cfm?c_id=1500937&objectid=10820250

I have seen it and of the documentaries, I think it is the best of them.

 

[Rolfe]

This is very true and everyone in the criminal justice system knows it. Both prosecutors and defense attorneys cite this question as an example:

"When someone is arrested by police, charged with a crime and brought to trial, do you think they must've done something to cause this?"

Repeatedly a majority of people will answer yes. This stands the entire justice system on its head.

Jurisdictions make a big difference too. Using police misconduct to explain why an innocent person has been charged with a crime they had no involvement in, works a lot better with an urban jury than with a suburban jury. Urbanites tend to have more interaction with police and are less willing to accept police evidence with an uncritical eye. Suburbanites tend to have less interaction with police and are much more willing to convict someone on the basis, "The police said they did it and I'm sure they know."

I actually started a thread about this in the forum a year or two ago, but it didn't go on for very long. I don't remember the usual suspects showing up to explain how it was that the police are nearly always right and the courts always deliver a verdict that is in accordance with what factually happened.

Rolfe.

 

[lane99]

Blood, uh, suckers

...Did he have any history of violence to children, or to pets? Any record of fantasising about it?...

As if that would make any difference to Echols groupies. They'd simply drown out such inconvenient truths by locking arms and raising the decibel level on their cultie mantra that he has only ever been suspected because of the colour of his t-shirt and his bad taste in music.

...That might be the sort of background you're looking for, but so far as I know, nothing of that sort was ever presented......

Indeed. And it is quite apparent that many don't know the case any farther than the lopsided Hollywood schmaltz rendition of it.
.
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[Rolfe]

You'll get on with presenting your detailed specialised knowledge then? Any time soon?

Rolfe.

 

[Matthew Best]

They'd simply drown out such inconvenient truths by locking arms and raising the decibel level on their cultie mantra that he has only ever been suspected because of the colour of his t-shirt and his bad taste in music.

It doesn't matter why he was suspected. What matters is whether any evidence was presented that proved he did it.

So, what evidence do you think proves his involvement?

 

[catsmate]

As if that would make any difference to Echols groupies. <rant snip>
.

So you've no actual facts and evidence then? Just bald assertions and personal attacks.

 

[Rolfe]

The thing is, if you review my posts in the previous thread, when I first started to look at the case, I said I had no opinion either way, but I was reading the arguments put forward by both sides. Only - there was only one side with a coherent argument in the public domain. A very good web site, and the wikipedia page, both advanced a clear evidence-based case for innocence. I repeatedly posted that I found these arguments quite compelling, and asked those who insisted the accused were guilty to counter these points or present a fact-based case of their own.

Crickets. Mainly, Jharyn repeatedly linking to a web site which merely hosts a ton of primary documentation with no discussion or analysis at all, and insisting that the evidence of guilt was to be found in there and he wasn't doing the spadework for us. It got so ludicrous that someone posted a post which was a mirror image of Jharyn's, declaring that the clear evidence of innocence was to be found in these documents, but he wasn't doing the spadework for us. Someone who knew the case said that was closer to the truth than what Jharyn was saying.

When challenged to present his best points for guilt, he started on about Echols' mental health record. Never produced any direct or circumstantial evidence of actual involvement in the murders.

That was all before the Alford Plea of course. To me, that pretty much says it all. Nobody has ever given any sensible reason why the state would accept an Alford Plea and immediately release the accused unless they knew damn fine there was no case that would stand up in court.

Rolfe.

 

[Samson]

The thing is, if you review my posts in the previous thread, when I first started to look at the case, I said I had no opinion either way, but I was reading the arguments put forward by both sides. Only - there was only one side with a coherent argument in the public domain. A very good web site, and the wikipedia page, both advanced a clear evidence-based case for innocence. I repeatedly posted that I found these arguments quite compelling, and asked those who insisted the accused were guilty to counter these points or present a fact-based case of their own.

Crickets. Mainly, Jharyn repeatedly linking to a web site which merely hosts a ton of primary documentation with no discussion or analysis at all, and insisting that the evidence of guilt was to be found in there and he wasn't doing the spadework for us. It got so ludicrous that someone posted a post which was a mirror image of Jharyn's, declaring that the clear evidence of innocence was to be found in these documents, but he wasn't doing the spadework for us. Someone who knew the case said that was closer to the truth than what Jharyn was saying.

When challenged to present his best points for guilt, he started on about Echols' mental health record. Never produced any direct or circumstantial evidence of actual involvement in the murders.

That was all before the Alford Plea of course. To me, that pretty much says it all. Nobody has ever given any sensible reason why the state would accept and Alford Plea and immediately release the accused unless they knew damn fine there was no case that would stand up in court.

Rolfe.

It is axiomatic, and I should check that definition, that when people did not do a crime, the resulting websites for or against will follow the same pattern. I hope you keep an eye on the Teina Pora case in the British privy council in November. They released David Bain and Mark Lundy in the last few years. Until I discovered the Kercher case, I tended to believe Bain was guilty. The NZ public poll exactly 50/50 on this. Pora will be exonerated by the privy council, yet our justice minister recently said that the fact he got to the privy council shows the system works. Despite the obvious fact, and obvious to no one more than you, that this "system" relies totally on private endeavour, or in fact, no system at all.

 

[Rolfe]

As you probably know, my main interest is in the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. Again the balance of the arguments has been similar, and actually some of the personnel are the same, with various people sounding off about guilt but producing no evidence at all to support their position.

The attitude of the authorities on that one is equally intransigent. They will brook no suggestion that they got the case entirely wrong, even when the evidence they did is staring them in the face. Megrahi appears to have been pressurised to drop an appeal that would have cleared him in order to be released instantly (when he was terminally ill), in much the same way that the West Memphis Three agreed to the Alford Plea in exchange for immediate release.

The taxpayers have been forced to fund an absolutely ridiculous "investigation" in Libya supposedly aimed at identifying and charging Megrahi's alleged accomplices. In the four or five years this farce has been going on, absolutely nothing has been discovered. The big reveal at the time they needed a big reveal last December was that a Libyan prosecutor had agreed to work with the Scottish investigators on the case. Be still my heart.

Right now it appears that we have one group of policemen who understand that the case was completely fouled up from the start, but they are separated by some sort of "Chinese wall" from the official position which is that all they need to do is look harder in Libya.

I'm not familiar with the Teina Pora case and I must look it up. [ETA: Looks like another case where someone who wasn't the town's most upstanding citizen was accused, and then found it impossible to shake the charge because of his background and character.] Did you know there's good reason to believe that Michael Stone didn't murder Lin and Megan Russell? The "jailhouse snitch" evidence was absolutely risible.

Rolfe.

 

[lionking]

The thing is, if you review my posts in the previous thread, when I first started to look at the case, I said I had no opinion either way, but I was reading the arguments put forward by both sides. Only - there was only one side with a coherent argument in the public domain. A very good web site, and the wikipedia page, both advanced a clear evidence-based case for innocence. I repeatedly posted that I found these arguments quite compelling, and asked those who insisted the accused were guilty to counter these points or present a fact-based case of their own.

Crickets. Mainly, Jharyn repeatedly linking to a web site which merely hosts a ton of primary documentation with no discussion or analysis at all, and insisting that the evidence of guilt was to be found in there and he wasn't doing the spadework for us. It got so ludicrous that someone posted a post which was a mirror image of Jharyn's, declaring that the clear evidence of innocence was to be found in these documents, but he wasn't doing the spadework for us. Someone who knew the case said that was closer to the truth than what Jharyn was saying.

When challenged to present his best points for guilt, he started on about Echols' mental health record. Never produced any direct or circumstantial evidence of actual involvement in the murders.

That was all before the Alford Plea of course. To me, that pretty much says it all. Nobody has ever given any sensible reason why the state would accept and Alford Plea and immediately release the accused unless they knew damn fine there was no case that would stand up in court.

Rolfe.

Good post. It reflects my position.

 

[Rolfe]

It's very disturbing how often the case for guilt boiils down to no more than "he looks like a bad apple, so he must have done it." News flash. There are millions of bad apples in the world. The trick is to find out which bad apple committed the crime.

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

Actually his alibi fell apart. His wrestling match was another night and no wrestling matches were held the night of the murders. His friends lied for him.

We've had Mojoe make this remark, and Stilicho and lane99 also post blanket assertions of obvious guilt and "Echols groupies" and other insulting comments, but as for actual evidence to back up these assertions, or even a coherent presentation of the case for guilt....

Still crickets.

You know I'm quite tired of this pattern of behaviour on this and other threads, and it's often the same people doing it too. Any conviction is defended as self-evidently sound without addressing any of the points made by those who believe a miscarrige of justice occurred. These people are castigated as "groupies" and other sneering terms.

And it goes on and on repeatedly, with the usual culprits popping up again and again and then disappearing without even the slightest effort to substantiate their position with either evidence or logic, and indeed not the slightest effort to address the points made by other posters.

I don't have any particular vested interest in this case. I wouldn't know Damian Echols if I met him in the street (I only ever saw one picture of him and the other accused, and in that he had his hand over his face). I would be perfectly content to believe them guilty if someone were to post some actual evidence or a coherent argument for guilt.

My position is that only one side has made a lucid case for their point of view, and that case is pretty compelling. I've heard nothing but sneers and unsubstantiated assertions from the other side. So until I hear anything better, yeah, call me a groupie if you like.

(I notice Lane99 has been studiously avoiding the Lockerbie thread since he announced that while the evidence probably wasn't sufficient to convict, the accused must be guilty because the intelligence services would have had evidence against him they couldn't bring to court. Care to come back and debate that in the right thread, Lane?)

Rolfe.