Missouri may have executed an innocent man today

While I don’t conceptually and morally have a problem with the death penalty in particularly egregious and obvious circumstances, there are so many more reasons to oppose it. The thought of innocent people here being executed puts us in the company of the likes of Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc.

 

Not being on the jury thus not hearing the evidence makes it hard to judge that case. The DA will never admit mistakes were made. Too many times we read about convicted people exconerated after years of incarceration.
Example of justice given in the end---
Man who abducted 11-year-old girl, tied her to a tree and repeatedly ravished the child for 5 hours 'got plainly unjust and inadequate sentence'! - Louisville Daily Post

 

Alito has already said the law doesn’t care if an innocent person is executed, it’s less important than dealing with pesky habeas filings, which unfortunately is listed in the Constitution so you have to permit it to exist, and he is left with imposing so many procedural hurdles so as to render it meaningless. Plus all those libs opposing the death penalty are fun to see bothered by an execution.

And then there’s Bill Barr and the Opus Dei crew. They’re much better Catholics than libs, except that Barr went out of his way to change guidelines to get himself some scalps.

 

My position as well!

 

This always come to mind.
Trump Will Not Apologize for Calling for Death Penalty Over Central Park Five (Published 2019)
In 1989 Donald Trump ran a full page ad in the New York Times implicitly calling for the death penalty for the "Central Park Five", five Black and Hispanic teenagers wrongfully convicted of the brutal beating and rape of a white jogger in Central Park. Even after they were later exonerated through DNA evidence Trump refused to apologize. If she died of her injuries and NY had the death penalty at the time all five could have been executed.

 

This is why I have softened on the death penalty over the years. Too much potential for wrong guy. I used to be staunchly in favor. I'm now against it except in very rare cases.

 

Simply awful ... No way a person should get the death penalty under those circumstances. Also have to admit, after reading the OP, before I clicked through, I'm thinking "it's got to be a black guy"... Sure enough...

 

What is a good argument for the death penalty? It can’t be undone, it’s meted out unjustly to the poor and minorities over the well-off and whites, and it certainly doesn’t deter anyone. So why have it?

 

This sums it up for me too.
Thanks for posting @gator_lawyer . Tragic if true.

 

Mostly agree though my guess is it does deter some. We cant really measure who would have, but Im sure it does help in that one way.

Doesnt make it just though.

 

It should be noted that the evedence is pretty strong against him. The relative that drove him to the airport testified he saw him toss a gun. And the cell phone activity of the older victim stopped completely on the day she is assumed murdered. (She had roughly 70 calls and texts a day but zero from that day on.) A day that he was still in Missouri and not in California as claimed.

DNA from the victims blood was found on the accused's glasses at his arrest.

 

This is what Republicans want.

 

Do away with it and house all former death row inmates in standard prison population and let the animals deal with justice.
I've always hated the fact that pieces of trash like our own Batman murderer (in Aurora, CO) and most of the other vile humans to have ever lived are protected in isolation on death row. Same with most child molesters. If these animals were put in with all the other prisoners we would have many less in the world today.
As it is they sit in a cell by themselves watching tv all day, not worried about showering or anything at all really. The only prisoners that should be kept out of gen pop are non-violent offenders, imo.

 

Our justice system BY DESIGN does not prove guilt or innocence. It is merely a weighing of type I vs. type II errors. So, it seems weird to do anything non reversible based on its conclusions.

 

Always strange to me that a lot of right leaning folks claim the government screws up everything it gets its hands into. Yet also are cool with govt sanctioned death sentences.

 

The primary reason I changed my mind. Governments foul up all the time. There's no coming back from an error in these cases.

 

That's a fair point and data clearly shows that the death penalty is not a deterrent, although justice for victims should not be discounted.

It's a tough needle to thread . . .

 

The justice for victims thing rings a little weird to me as well. Why do we only focus on justice when it is a death for a death? We want the same outcome to fall upon the perpetrator as the victim? Then wouldn't all homocides/manslaughter be punishable by death?
Wouldn't we then expect a rapist to be punished with rape? An arsonist with fire?

It's all just weird vengeance to me. I get it, we're emotional creatures, but there isn't much rhyme or reason to it.

I don't support the death penalty in any case. Even the most heinous and egregious.

 

To me
The death penalty should used only to remove monsters from society. The man that tied the child to a tree.. clearly a monster. Death penalty is not for punishment or justice. But for societal good.