The British government has decided to pay former detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, tens of millions of dollars in compensation and conduct an independent investigation into its role in the mistreatment of prisoners.
The United States still operates the Guantánamo camp, with no end in sight. None of the truly dangerous terrorists there have been brought to justice, while many prisoners are still held who never should have been. The government not only refuses to come clean on this ignoble history, but it is covering up the Bush administration’s abuses by denying victims a day in court.
Read more....
Canada compensated Maher Arar, a Canadian torture victim, who was the victim of a rendition while on U.S. soil. Not only did the U.S. fail to offer this victim compensation, it block his law suit, claiming national security interests.
Now Britain has decided to step up and compensate more victims of American foreign policy. Good for them, bad for us. The Bush regime has no shame, and the Obama administration is making the same mistakes by covering up for the Bush war crimes.
Sort of a hollow gesture to point out human rights abuses by other countries when our own house is in such disarray.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Looks can kill
"This is the condition where the death penalty was meant to be applied. The crime was so heinous, and there was so little remorse shown on the part of the defendant. He sat there with such a blank look," the juror said.
"The guy continued to stare straight ahead like he was watching a movie. There was just nothing."
Read more...
The above comments were made by one of the jurors in the Hayes capital case in Connecticut.
The 5th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides protection against self-incrimination. The attorneys in this case followed the standard pattern of not allowing their client to testify. That is usually a pretty good strategy as defendants are apt to say or do something that is prejudicial to their case.
On the other hand, the failure of the defendant to testify can sometimes result in a conviction, or in this case, a death sentence. Jurors want the defendant to show remorse if they are going to extend mercy. Many jurors interpret the failure to testify as having no remorse. They also interpret a defendant's demeanor while sitting at the defense table as showing no remorse even though defense attorney's may caution their clients to remain emotionless.
This is a flaw in the 5th Amendment that needs to be addressed in the sentencing instructions to the jury. Looks can kill.
"The guy continued to stare straight ahead like he was watching a movie. There was just nothing."
Read more...
The above comments were made by one of the jurors in the Hayes capital case in Connecticut.
The 5th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides protection against self-incrimination. The attorneys in this case followed the standard pattern of not allowing their client to testify. That is usually a pretty good strategy as defendants are apt to say or do something that is prejudicial to their case.
On the other hand, the failure of the defendant to testify can sometimes result in a conviction, or in this case, a death sentence. Jurors want the defendant to show remorse if they are going to extend mercy. Many jurors interpret the failure to testify as having no remorse. They also interpret a defendant's demeanor while sitting at the defense table as showing no remorse even though defense attorney's may caution their clients to remain emotionless.
This is a flaw in the 5th Amendment that needs to be addressed in the sentencing instructions to the jury. Looks can kill.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Killer Mines
Over the years, the federal government has done far less than it should — and far less than the law requires — to guarantee the safety of Appalachia’s miners. So it was a welcome break with grim history when the Labor Department asked a federal judge last week to shut down a Kentucky mine owned by the Massey Energy Company. The mine has been cited for about 700 safety violations this year alone.
Massey is also the owner of the violation-plagued Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia, where a methane explosion killed 29 workers in April. The company is reportedly the object of two grand jury investigations in connection with that disaster.
Read more....
The safety record of the mining industry in this country can only be described as abysmal. So too is the history of regulation. It remains to be seen if Massey Energy will be held criminally accountable for the 29 deaths. But the lack of accountability for violent crimes is part of the history of white-collar crimes in the U.S. Many people, especially those connected to the criminal justice system, don't make the connection between the actions of corporations and criminal accountability. Too bad, because more people might still be alive if criminal sanctions were sought.
Massey is also the owner of the violation-plagued Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia, where a methane explosion killed 29 workers in April. The company is reportedly the object of two grand jury investigations in connection with that disaster.
Read more....
The safety record of the mining industry in this country can only be described as abysmal. So too is the history of regulation. It remains to be seen if Massey Energy will be held criminally accountable for the 29 deaths. But the lack of accountability for violent crimes is part of the history of white-collar crimes in the U.S. Many people, especially those connected to the criminal justice system, don't make the connection between the actions of corporations and criminal accountability. Too bad, because more people might still be alive if criminal sanctions were sought.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Prison Economics
Last year, two men showed up in Benson, Ariz., a small desert town 60 miles from the Mexico border, offering a deal.
Glenn Nichols, the Benson city manager, remembers the pitch.
"The gentleman that's the main thrust of this thing has a huge turquoise ring on his finger," Nichols said. "He's a great big huge guy and I equated him to a car salesman."
What he was selling was a prison for women and children who were illegal immigrants.
"They talk [about] how positive this was going to be for the community," Nichols said, "the amount of money that we would realize from each prisoner on a daily rate."
But Nichols wasn't buying. He asked them how would they possibly keep a prison full for years — decades even — with illegal immigrants?
"They talked like they didn't have any doubt they could fill it," Nichols said.
That's because prison companies like this one had a plan — a new business model to lock up illegal immigrants. And the plan became Arizona's immigration law.
Read more...
We have long feared the impact of the prison-industrial complex. Perpetuation of the war on drugs and mass incarceration is a partial result of the marriage of money and politics. But this is the first case I am aware of where the private sector played a leading role in creating the criminals who would then fill the facilities that, would, in turn, fill the coffers of the for-profit. prison industry.
Politics has corrupted the criminal justice system. The pace of corruption has accelerated with this latest sordid meménage à trois between money, politics, and the criminal justice system.
BTW- investigative journalism like this report is the real reason that conservatives are once again targeting NPR's funding. They don't like it when truth speaks to power.
Glenn Nichols, the Benson city manager, remembers the pitch.
"The gentleman that's the main thrust of this thing has a huge turquoise ring on his finger," Nichols said. "He's a great big huge guy and I equated him to a car salesman."
What he was selling was a prison for women and children who were illegal immigrants.
"They talk [about] how positive this was going to be for the community," Nichols said, "the amount of money that we would realize from each prisoner on a daily rate."
But Nichols wasn't buying. He asked them how would they possibly keep a prison full for years — decades even — with illegal immigrants?
"They talked like they didn't have any doubt they could fill it," Nichols said.
That's because prison companies like this one had a plan — a new business model to lock up illegal immigrants. And the plan became Arizona's immigration law.
Read more...
We have long feared the impact of the prison-industrial complex. Perpetuation of the war on drugs and mass incarceration is a partial result of the marriage of money and politics. But this is the first case I am aware of where the private sector played a leading role in creating the criminals who would then fill the facilities that, would, in turn, fill the coffers of the for-profit. prison industry.
Politics has corrupted the criminal justice system. The pace of corruption has accelerated with this latest sordid meménage à trois between money, politics, and the criminal justice system.
BTW- investigative journalism like this report is the real reason that conservatives are once again targeting NPR's funding. They don't like it when truth speaks to power.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Just the Cost of Doing Business
GlaxoSmithKline, the British drug giant, has agreed to pay $750 million to settle criminal and civil complaints that the company for years knowingly sold contaminated baby ointment and an ineffective antidepressant — the latest in a growing number of whistle-blower lawsuits that drug makers have settled with multimillion-dollar fines.
Altogether, GlaxoSmithKline sold 20 drugs with questionable safety that were made at a huge plant in Puerto Rico that for years was rife with contamination.
Read more...
$750 million sounds like a lot of money, but here is the key to understanding the issue: "Whistle-blower cases have become so routine that Wall Street no longer takes much notice of individual suits, while the growing trend remains hidden." The facility in question produced $5.5 billion worth of products each year.
So $750 million is just the cost of doing business.
Altogether, GlaxoSmithKline sold 20 drugs with questionable safety that were made at a huge plant in Puerto Rico that for years was rife with contamination.
Read more...
$750 million sounds like a lot of money, but here is the key to understanding the issue: "Whistle-blower cases have become so routine that Wall Street no longer takes much notice of individual suits, while the growing trend remains hidden." The facility in question produced $5.5 billion worth of products each year.
So $750 million is just the cost of doing business.
So Much for the Rule of Law
Arizona executed a man last night after the US supreme court lifted a stay granted when the state refused to reveal how it obtained one of the drugs used in the death chamber from a British manufacturer.
The state's attorney general, Terry Goddard, used a little known law preventing the identification of executioners – and others with "ancillary" functions – to defy a court order requiring the state to reveal the exact source of an anesthetic, sodium thiopental, used in the execution.
Read more...
The effectiveness of sodium thiopental was one of the main issues in Baze v. Rees. And states are not supposed to use drugs not approved by the FDA. Given that states are supposed to follow the law and that the effectiveness of one of the three drugs used to kill people is in question, one might think that the state would have delayed the execution in order to follow the rule of law and to ensure that a botched execution was avoided.
Additional reading - "This drug came from a reputable place," Chief Deputy Attorney General Tim Nelson said. "There's all sorts of wild speculation that it came from a third-world country, and that's not accurate."
Not so fast - GlaxoSmithKline, the British drug giant, has agreed to pay $750 million to settle criminal and civil complaints that the company for years knowingly sold contaminated products manufactured in Puerto Rico. So just because the drug supposedly came from Britain does not mean that it wasn't manufactured in a "third-world country."
But the larger issue in this case was the mental state of the condemned man:
Last week, Cheryl Hendrix, the judge who condemned Landrigan, told a clemency board that she would have given him a lesser sentence had she been aware of the brain damage caused by his mother's heavy drinking while pregnant and his turbulent childhood.
"The death penalty in this case is not appropriate and never has been," she said.
Why should anyone respect the laws of the State of Arizona when the State itself set such a terrible example?
The state's attorney general, Terry Goddard, used a little known law preventing the identification of executioners – and others with "ancillary" functions – to defy a court order requiring the state to reveal the exact source of an anesthetic, sodium thiopental, used in the execution.
Read more...
The effectiveness of sodium thiopental was one of the main issues in Baze v. Rees. And states are not supposed to use drugs not approved by the FDA. Given that states are supposed to follow the law and that the effectiveness of one of the three drugs used to kill people is in question, one might think that the state would have delayed the execution in order to follow the rule of law and to ensure that a botched execution was avoided.
Additional reading - "This drug came from a reputable place," Chief Deputy Attorney General Tim Nelson said. "There's all sorts of wild speculation that it came from a third-world country, and that's not accurate."
Not so fast - GlaxoSmithKline, the British drug giant, has agreed to pay $750 million to settle criminal and civil complaints that the company for years knowingly sold contaminated products manufactured in Puerto Rico. So just because the drug supposedly came from Britain does not mean that it wasn't manufactured in a "third-world country."
But the larger issue in this case was the mental state of the condemned man:
Last week, Cheryl Hendrix, the judge who condemned Landrigan, told a clemency board that she would have given him a lesser sentence had she been aware of the brain damage caused by his mother's heavy drinking while pregnant and his turbulent childhood.
"The death penalty in this case is not appropriate and never has been," she said.
Why should anyone respect the laws of the State of Arizona when the State itself set such a terrible example?
Monday, October 25, 2010
Justice?
This is a court of law, not a court of justice. Oliver Wendel Holmes
Troubling questions over Georgia's controversial death penalty system will remain unresolved for now, after the Supreme Court declined Monday to review an appeal from a death-row inmate who received unwanted help from state prosecutors on his legal representation.
The justices without comment rejected Jamie Ryan Weis' request for relief. He says he sat in jail for years after the state ran out of money to pay for his lawyers. Weis said prosecutors then suggested that a judge appoint two public defenders, even offering the names of two overworked and inexperienced attorneys who did not want the job. Weis' current legal team calls that a blatant conflict of interest.
Read more...
We only have to read the Court's majority opinion in Powell v. Alabama to understand why the assistance of qualified counsel is essential in the criminal justice process.
The right to be heard would be, in many cases, of little avail if it did not comprehend the right to be heard by counsel. Even the intelligent and educated layman has small and sometimes no skill in the science of law. If charged with crime, he is incapable, generally, of determining for himself whether the indictment is good or bad. He is unfamiliar with the rules of evidence. Left without the aid of counsel, he may be put on trial without a proper charge, and convicted upon incompetent evidence, or evidence irrelevant to the issue or otherwise inadmissible. He lacks both the skill and knowledge adequately to prepare his defense, even though he have a perfect one. He requires the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against him. Without it, though he be not guilty, he faces the danger of conviction because he does not know how to establish his innocence. If that be true of men of intelligence, how much more true is it of the ignorant and illiterate, or those of feeble intellect. If in any case, civil or criminal, a state or federal court were arbitrarily to refuse to hear a party by counsel, employed by and appearing for him, it reasonably may not be doubted that such a refusal would be a denial of a hearing, and, therefore, of due process in the constitutional sense.
No only is a person on trial for his or her life entitled to the assistance of counsel, but the prosecution should be barred from picking that counsel.
Troubling questions over Georgia's controversial death penalty system will remain unresolved for now, after the Supreme Court declined Monday to review an appeal from a death-row inmate who received unwanted help from state prosecutors on his legal representation.
The justices without comment rejected Jamie Ryan Weis' request for relief. He says he sat in jail for years after the state ran out of money to pay for his lawyers. Weis said prosecutors then suggested that a judge appoint two public defenders, even offering the names of two overworked and inexperienced attorneys who did not want the job. Weis' current legal team calls that a blatant conflict of interest.
Read more...
We only have to read the Court's majority opinion in Powell v. Alabama to understand why the assistance of qualified counsel is essential in the criminal justice process.
The right to be heard would be, in many cases, of little avail if it did not comprehend the right to be heard by counsel. Even the intelligent and educated layman has small and sometimes no skill in the science of law. If charged with crime, he is incapable, generally, of determining for himself whether the indictment is good or bad. He is unfamiliar with the rules of evidence. Left without the aid of counsel, he may be put on trial without a proper charge, and convicted upon incompetent evidence, or evidence irrelevant to the issue or otherwise inadmissible. He lacks both the skill and knowledge adequately to prepare his defense, even though he have a perfect one. He requires the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against him. Without it, though he be not guilty, he faces the danger of conviction because he does not know how to establish his innocence. If that be true of men of intelligence, how much more true is it of the ignorant and illiterate, or those of feeble intellect. If in any case, civil or criminal, a state or federal court were arbitrarily to refuse to hear a party by counsel, employed by and appearing for him, it reasonably may not be doubted that such a refusal would be a denial of a hearing, and, therefore, of due process in the constitutional sense.
No only is a person on trial for his or her life entitled to the assistance of counsel, but the prosecution should be barred from picking that counsel.
Race and the Drug War
According to a report released Friday by the Marijuana Arrest Research Project for the Drug Policy Alliance and the N.A.A.C.P. and led by Prof. Harry Levine, a sociologist at the City University of New York: “In the last 20 years, California made 850,000 arrests for possession of small amounts of marijuana, and half-a-million arrests in the last 10 years. The people arrested were disproportionately African-Americans and Latinos, overwhelmingly young people, especially men.”
For instance, the report says that the City of Los Angeles “arrested blacks for marijuana possession at seven times the rate of whites.”
This imbalance is not specific to California; it exists across the country.
One could justify this on some level if, in fact, young blacks and Hispanics were using marijuana more than young whites, but that isn’t the case. According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, young white people consistently report higher marijuana use than blacks or Hispanics.
Read more...
What additional evidence do we need in order to decriminalize or legalize marijuana? Prohibition does not work; in fact, it makes matters worse. Now we see that the law is being applied in a discriminatory fashion.
Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow) argues that mass incarceration (and we must add arrest and prosecution to the formula) has evolved as the latest iteration of the Southern strategy. Locking up people of color gives the appearance of a race-neutral policy when, in fact, the ultimate goal is to attract white voters to policies (and the party that supports them).
The problem, as this article points out, is that Democrats are now trapped because no party can be successful if it appears soft on crime. There is no room in U.S. crime control policies for being smart on crime.
For instance, the report says that the City of Los Angeles “arrested blacks for marijuana possession at seven times the rate of whites.”
This imbalance is not specific to California; it exists across the country.
One could justify this on some level if, in fact, young blacks and Hispanics were using marijuana more than young whites, but that isn’t the case. According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, young white people consistently report higher marijuana use than blacks or Hispanics.
Read more...
What additional evidence do we need in order to decriminalize or legalize marijuana? Prohibition does not work; in fact, it makes matters worse. Now we see that the law is being applied in a discriminatory fashion.
Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow) argues that mass incarceration (and we must add arrest and prosecution to the formula) has evolved as the latest iteration of the Southern strategy. Locking up people of color gives the appearance of a race-neutral policy when, in fact, the ultimate goal is to attract white voters to policies (and the party that supports them).
The problem, as this article points out, is that Democrats are now trapped because no party can be successful if it appears soft on crime. There is no room in U.S. crime control policies for being smart on crime.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Impossible
In his decades working as a forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Richard Coons of Austin has testified at dozens of death penalty trials across Texas in which he opined about how defendants would behave in the future.
Read more....
Dr. Coons is in a situation similar to Dr. Grigson (a.k.a Dr. Death). Grigson was expelled from the APA for ethics violations. Grigson concluded in the case of Randal Dale Adams that Adams would kill again if released from prison. The only problem with this predication was that Adams had never killed anyone in the first place. He was exonerated and released from Texas Death Row after serving nearly 10 years.
The bottom line is that it is impossible to accurately predict future dangerousness. The American Psychiatric Association filed amicus briefs that noted
Psychiatrists should not be permitted to offer a prediction concerning the long-term future dangerousness of a defendant in a capital case, at least in those circumstances where the psychiatrist purports to be testifying as a medical expert possessing predictive expertise in this area. Although psychiatric assessments may permit shortterm predictions of violent or assaultive behavior, medical knowledge has simply not advanced to the point where long-term predictions -- the type of testimony at issue in this case - -may be made with even reasonable accuracy. The large body of research in this area indicates that, even under the best of conditions, psychiatric predictions of long-term future dangerousness are wrong in at least two out of every three cases.
Read more....
Dr. Coons is in a situation similar to Dr. Grigson (a.k.a Dr. Death). Grigson was expelled from the APA for ethics violations. Grigson concluded in the case of Randal Dale Adams that Adams would kill again if released from prison. The only problem with this predication was that Adams had never killed anyone in the first place. He was exonerated and released from Texas Death Row after serving nearly 10 years.
The bottom line is that it is impossible to accurately predict future dangerousness. The American Psychiatric Association filed amicus briefs that noted
Psychiatrists should not be permitted to offer a prediction concerning the long-term future dangerousness of a defendant in a capital case, at least in those circumstances where the psychiatrist purports to be testifying as a medical expert possessing predictive expertise in this area. Although psychiatric assessments may permit shortterm predictions of violent or assaultive behavior, medical knowledge has simply not advanced to the point where long-term predictions -- the type of testimony at issue in this case - -may be made with even reasonable accuracy. The large body of research in this area indicates that, even under the best of conditions, psychiatric predictions of long-term future dangerousness are wrong in at least two out of every three cases.
Playing Politics with the Death Penalty
RALEIGH, N.C. — A top North Carolina House Democrat whose daughter was murdered 25 years ago said Wednesday he wants the state Republican Party to retract a mailer it sent out alleging that a law he voted for could parole death row prisoners.
The mailer, which was sent to residents in Majority Leader Hugh Holliman’s district in Davidson County, focuses on his support for the Racial Justice Act in 2009. The state law allows people on death row to receive life in prison without the possibility of parole if they can prove, with statistics and other evidence, that race played a role in decisions by prosecutors or jurors to seek the death penalty.
Read more...
The bottom line is that Republicans have been called out on the lie regarding the impact and intent of North Carolina's Racial Justice Act. As the law and the article make clear, death row inmates may challenge their sentences, but the only option is life without parole.
The mailer, which is intended to play on the fears and prejudices of voters, is just one more example of how politicians use capital punishment, the victims and their families, and death row inmates and their families to further their own dastardly ends.
Read It's Just Your Garden-Variety Lie and the Big Lie
The mailer, which was sent to residents in Majority Leader Hugh Holliman’s district in Davidson County, focuses on his support for the Racial Justice Act in 2009. The state law allows people on death row to receive life in prison without the possibility of parole if they can prove, with statistics and other evidence, that race played a role in decisions by prosecutors or jurors to seek the death penalty.
Read more...
The bottom line is that Republicans have been called out on the lie regarding the impact and intent of North Carolina's Racial Justice Act. As the law and the article make clear, death row inmates may challenge their sentences, but the only option is life without parole.
The mailer, which is intended to play on the fears and prejudices of voters, is just one more example of how politicians use capital punishment, the victims and their families, and death row inmates and their families to further their own dastardly ends.
Read It's Just Your Garden-Variety Lie and the Big Lie
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Are sex offenders a Halloween threat?
Just last week, I wrote about a California district's controversial move to ban sex offenders from celebrating Halloween, but Tulare County is hardly alone. Police are gearing up for similar crackdowns across Tennessee and Virginia, where they officially refer to it as Operation Trick No Treat and Operation Porch Lights Out (for serious). "The purpose of the operation is to both protect and remove a high-risk population from the community during a time when ... children could be vulnerable," Larry Traylor, a spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Correction, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Read more...
The problem with these polices is that they don't work, but they do contribute to heighten fear. As this article reports "No increased rate on or just before Halloween was found, and Halloween incidents did not evidence unusual case characteristics." That remained true even after policies restricting sex offenders' spooky decorating and treat-giving were instituted.
These policies perpetuate the myth of the stranger sex predators. Research has shown that the greater threat is from a member of the family or an acquaintance. Registered sex offenders are scape-goats. Additional harm results when a parent or guardian, trying to be vigilant,looks in the wrong direction for threats to their children.
And then there are some additional precautions to ensure a safe Halloween experience: (1) never let children step inside a resident; (2) an adult should always accompany children until they return home at the end of the night; and (3) nothing should be consumed until an adult has inspected it. If the item looks suspicious, it should be tossed in the garbage. But denying offenders the privilege of passing out candy does little to protect children, but does add to the fear unnecessarily.
Read more...
The problem with these polices is that they don't work, but they do contribute to heighten fear. As this article reports "No increased rate on or just before Halloween was found, and Halloween incidents did not evidence unusual case characteristics." That remained true even after policies restricting sex offenders' spooky decorating and treat-giving were instituted.
These policies perpetuate the myth of the stranger sex predators. Research has shown that the greater threat is from a member of the family or an acquaintance. Registered sex offenders are scape-goats. Additional harm results when a parent or guardian, trying to be vigilant,looks in the wrong direction for threats to their children.
And then there are some additional precautions to ensure a safe Halloween experience: (1) never let children step inside a resident; (2) an adult should always accompany children until they return home at the end of the night; and (3) nothing should be consumed until an adult has inspected it. If the item looks suspicious, it should be tossed in the garbage. But denying offenders the privilege of passing out candy does little to protect children, but does add to the fear unnecessarily.
Monday, October 18, 2010
A Court of Law, Not a Court of Justice
It was an unusual hearing. The subject at the center of it all, Cameron Todd Willingham, was not present. After being convicted of murdering his three children in a 1991 house fire, he was executed in 2004.
Members of Mr. Willingham’s family, working with lawyers who oppose the death penalty, had asked for the rare and controversial hearing, held here on Thursday, to investigate whether Mr. Willingham was wrongfully convicted. They argue that the proceeding, known as a court of inquiry, could restore Mr. Willingham’s reputation, a right guaranteed under Texas law, even to the dead.
Read more....
The quote from Justice Holmes sums up the part of the problem for those facing a sentence of death. Politicians will continue to spout platitudes and rhetoric about how much review a particular case has received. What they don't tell you is that law, and the courts are not concerned about truth or justice. Instead the focus on process.
So Mr. Willingham may very well be innocent, but justices like Scalia could care less because he (and every other death row inmate) has had a fair chance at proving their innocence during the initial trial.
The other interesting quote in this story comes from Kent Scheidegger, the legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a group that supports the death penalty. He notes that no one that supports capital punishment will give the findings of this court of inquiry any credibility. In order words, don't try to confuse these folks with the facts, their minds are already made up.
Members of Mr. Willingham’s family, working with lawyers who oppose the death penalty, had asked for the rare and controversial hearing, held here on Thursday, to investigate whether Mr. Willingham was wrongfully convicted. They argue that the proceeding, known as a court of inquiry, could restore Mr. Willingham’s reputation, a right guaranteed under Texas law, even to the dead.
Read more....
The quote from Justice Holmes sums up the part of the problem for those facing a sentence of death. Politicians will continue to spout platitudes and rhetoric about how much review a particular case has received. What they don't tell you is that law, and the courts are not concerned about truth or justice. Instead the focus on process.
So Mr. Willingham may very well be innocent, but justices like Scalia could care less because he (and every other death row inmate) has had a fair chance at proving their innocence during the initial trial.
The other interesting quote in this story comes from Kent Scheidegger, the legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a group that supports the death penalty. He notes that no one that supports capital punishment will give the findings of this court of inquiry any credibility. In order words, don't try to confuse these folks with the facts, their minds are already made up.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Holding Prosecutors Accountable
What angers Thompson, he said after his exoneration, is that "nobody in the prosecutor's office ever faces charges, nobody has to pay. A slap on the wrist for 'malfeasance' and then they're back at work doing the same old thing." Nick Trenticosta agrees. "As it stands, there are no deterrents to these prosecutors," he says. "If they get caught withholding evidence so what? Nothing happens to them."
Read more...
This story represents a sorry state of affairs in criminal justice. Wrongful convictions occur sometimes despite the best of intentions. But when prosecutors willfully withhold exculpatory evidence, then they must be held accountable. One way is to levy actual and punitive damages against this egregious conduct. Another is to charge them criminally. But to cloak them in immunity does more damage to the credibility of the system and the confidence of the community in that system.
Read more...
This story represents a sorry state of affairs in criminal justice. Wrongful convictions occur sometimes despite the best of intentions. But when prosecutors willfully withhold exculpatory evidence, then they must be held accountable. One way is to levy actual and punitive damages against this egregious conduct. Another is to charge them criminally. But to cloak them in immunity does more damage to the credibility of the system and the confidence of the community in that system.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)