Austin Criminal Defense Lawyer & Attorney : Jamie Spencer Law Firm : DWI, DUI, Drug Possession : Serving Georgetown, Round Rock, San Marcos, Travis, Williamson, and Hays County, Texas

A Harris County Lawyer continues her (his?) excellent series on the inner workings of the District Attorney’s Office in Houston with “The Capital Murder Decision” which takes us through the process used to determine whether or not to seek the death penalty:

Harris County has long been synonymous with being the "Death Penalty Capital of the World" and it has always been pretty much the center of every debate on capital punishment since the 1970s.

Good opening – I’m glad to not have to debate that point, but let’s throw in some facts and figures just to prove that the nickname is more than well deserved, it’s literally true. If Harris County were a State, it would rank second to Texas and ahead of current number two Virginia in number of inmates executed since 1982, when Texas reinstated the death penalty.

One portion of the decision making process?

If a Defendant has priors, the prosecutor won't just order the Judgment and Sentence reflecting the conviction. They will order the offense report, the old file, and everything else that they possibly can to understand what happened on the prior offense.

Reading offense reports of priors is certainly appropriate. But let’s not forget the number one rule of offense reports: The police put in all the bad facts, and leave out anything mitigating or exculpatory. So if you want the worst possible take on an offense? Read the police report – several times preferably.

They often pull the Defendant's school records if he is young. They will talk to the victim's family members and discuss their feelings about the case.

Victim’s family members are rarely going to oppose the death penalty in a murder case. I hope I would – but frankly, I’m not sure. Actually, I think I’d want to kill the S.O.B. myself, but I wouldn’t want the government to do it. And I’m against the death penalty.

They will look at the offense itself and decide how bad the facts of the case-in-chief are. Sadly, in this day and age, a capital murder during a convenience store robbery doesn't really "shock the conscience" like it used to.

Now we get to the thesis of AHCL’s post. Harris County only asks jurors to execute in cases where the murder shocks the conscience.

But that still doesn’t come close to answering the question of why Harris County’s death penalty rate is so high. And it’s high – I should say the highest and by a long shot - by any metric: total executions, percentage of murder convictions where a sentence of death is imposed, number of capital cases indicted, etc. It’s the percentages of death sentences to murders that begs the next question:

Why are the consciences of Harris County prosecutors/jurors so easily shocked – compared to every other geographical region in the country with statistically significantly lower death penalty rates?

• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Grits asks, “Would you confess to a crime you didn’t commit to save your life?” and notes that in Austin, Texas in 1988 Christopher Ochoa did exactly that – then plead to a life sentence and testified against his ‘friend’ Richard Danzinger, who also happened to be innocent. (Danzinger’s jury took 8 minutes to sentence him to life as well. Unfortunately, after several suicide attempts but before eventual exoneration, he was beaten within an inch of his life in prison and suffered tremendous injuries.)

Noting an article profiling now practicing criminal defense lawyer Ochoa in today’s Dallas Morning News, Grits points out that Doug Berman of Sentencing Law and Policy has previously praised the death penalty as en effective plea bargaining tool for law enforcement and prosecutors:

Doc Berman over at the Sentencing Law and Policy blogs says the death penalty is an "effective plea bargaining tool," but to me here's an example of what he means in practice. If you threaten to kill somebody, they may admit to anything, but I'm not sure that's so "effective" as it just makes wrongful confessions more likely.

Holy cow. How could I have missed that one of my favorite bloggers was so off the mark? Here’s a clip from Berman’s original post on the subject, “Another example of the death penalty as an effective plea bargaining tool”:

It seems fair to assume that the federal government would not have been able to secure this plea deal were it not for the threat of the death penalty.  (Other high profile cases with similar "death-defying" plea bargains include the Unibomber and the Green River Killer.)  Though many might debate whether justice has been served by this plea deal, no one can question whether justice was efficient.

Berman is referencing a 2007 plea deal between a ‘drug kingpin’ and the Feds, where the defendant plead to life to avoid the death penalty. And I’m not sure what he meant by debate about “whether justice has been served by this plea deal”. Maybe he meant justice for this crime cried out for the death penalty, and therefore some could be unhappy with it.

But to the extent that the phrase questions the accuracy of the conviction, this logic makes no sense to me at all. Threatening to kill someone if they don’t [fill-in-the-blank] is very likely to produce, well, to produce [fill-in-the-blank]. And if achieving [fill-in-the-blank] is of the utmost importance, than threatening to kill someone to achieve it is likely to be an extremely efficient way of doing just that.

The problem with this logic however, is that while in this scenario you can fill in the blank with the concept of ‘convicting someone of this crime,’ you can not fill in the blank with the concept of ‘convicting the right person of this crime’. More specifically, you can only convict the person you threaten with the death penalty; you do nothing to make certain that you threaten the right person.

Efficiency is the wrong measure of any prosecution. Certainly accuracy should be the hallmark of any capital case. I’m pretty sure the Spanish Inquisition got high marks for efficiency when it came to extracting confessions.

• Print
• Comments (2)
• Trackbacks (1)

There’s been some poorly reasoned counter-arguments bandied about the blogosphere regarding the push to have Sharon ‘Killer’ Keller sanctioned, impeached and/or disbarred for her refusal to keep the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals open an extra 20 minutes so that a request to stay an execution could be filed.

The argument boils down to this: the lawyers shouldn’t have waited until 5 o’clock to file their appeal – period, end of story. I responded before, in part, to this by writing:

What does Judge Killer have to say about it?

“You’re asking me whether something different would have happened if we had stayed open,” Keller said, “and I think the question ought to be why didn’t they file something on time? They had all day.”

Let me first address the .000001% of what she said that isn’t ridiculous.

Yes, lawyers for defendants on death row routinely try to time their appeals to be last minute… because several last minute stays can add life span for the client (as opposed to filing each petition as early as possible). And while I don’t handle death penalty appeals, I think those who do should learn from this: have everything ready days or weeks in advance, and then park outside the court with all the necessary paperwork to run in at the last minute, so to avoid last minute ‘technical difficulties’.

Oddly though, while being .000001% ‘correct’, Judge Killer manages to also be 100% wrong.

No, they didn’t have “all day” as they should. Last time I checked, 5:20 p.m. today is still… today.

Houston criminal defense lawyer Mark Bennett has written extensively on this subject as well:

Death penalty enthusiasts are chortling about Judge Sharon Keller's action in closing the courthouse doors to Mr. Richard. A common theme among their responses is "blame the lawyers." One [anonymous] sample, in comments to my first post on the subject:

Why didn't the lawyers who needed to file do so BEFORE the court closed????? That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. She closed on time, so you're filing a lawsuit against her?

HELLO???? Is anyone out there?????

Apparently not. Get real. You're supposedly fighting for a man's life and are running 20 minutes late? What a JOKE!!!!!!!!

Here's Houston criminal defense lawyer Troy McKinney's (an HCCLA past president and, more importantly, my attorney) reply to the argument that Keller was just following the rules, from comments on today's Houston Chronicle editorial calling for Keller's ouster:

The Supreme Court of the United States did not grant certiorari on the case involving the chemicals used in the death solution until that day. There were not days and weeks to prepare. There was less than one full day. As I understand it, it took until afternoon to get the materials that were used to obtain the review in DC and then the rest of the afternoon to draft the materials for the Court of Criminal Appeals. Although the Texas Supreme Court allows email or fax filing of emergency matters, Judge Keller also refused to allow the petition and motion to be filed by fax or email. The court even refused to allow a single copy to be filed immediately and the remaining 11 required copies (of the several hundred page document) to be filed shortly thereafter. At 5:20 p.m., when it was ready to file, the doors to the clerk’s office were locked so there was no way to get it to the people at the court (including in the clerk's office) who were still at the court.

Never before has the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals not been available on the day, evening, or night of an execution to accept whatever, if anything, was to be filed -- unless they were told in advance that nothing would be filed. Of course, here, Judge Keller through the clerk and staff was told that something would be filed and she made a conscious decision not to allow it be by closing the court and making the clerk's office unavailable.

The decisions made by Presiding Judge Keller are inexcusable.

The Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association is also filing a complaint with the Judicial Conduct Commission. There will be over 100 local lawyers who sign it.

I hope it’s clear from my previous posts where I stand on Judge Killer – on this issue as well as others. But let me make 2 points here.

#1) I still think it’s possible to argue that Michael Richard’s lawyers could have been more prepared. Yes, cert was granted that day, but the Supreme Court doesn’t just grant cert out of the blue. This case had been pending for awhile, including of course the request for cert. 

Lawyers should be up to date on the types of cases they are handling, whether initially before the trial stage, or in the post conviction/extraordinary remedy situation. Having said that, this was a pretty unusual situation, and I should have made it clearer that I’m not criticizing the lawyers in this particular case. My comments were meant partly as general advice – and were more specifically labeled as the one / one millionth of one percent of what was defensible of Judge Killer’s quote about her decision.

I’m no stranger myself to paranoia about missing deadlines, and I try to have several levels of safeguards in place to ensure that doesn’t happen. 

But, and this is the biggie…

#2) If it really really had been the fault of the lawyer, then the execution is even more – not less – inexcusable.

So, if as they claim the ‘lawyer should have known better,’ the pro-death penalty argument is truly senseless.

If you believe that the lawyer was the one to blame – rather than say a corrupt, lazy and intellectually dishonest judge – well…

Should the client DIE because his lawyer screwed up?

Is that what passes for ‘justice’ nowadays?

• Print
• Comments (3)
• Trackbacks

Glad to see national coverage on ABC News about Judge Sharon Killer’s refusal to keep the Court of Criminal Appeals open an extra 20 minutes to allow defense lawyers, who were apparently having computer/technical difficulties, to file a stay of execution.

Some quick background. The United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case, Baze v. Rees,  to decide whether lethal injection is a constitutionally permissible execution method. The legal issues get a little more complicated than that actually, but suffice it to say that this isn’t some crackpot defense lawyer theory: the American Medical Association’s code of ethics prohibits its members from participating in lethal injections. And there is ample evidence to show that without proper medical attention, lethal injection executions run a high risk of being botched. 

Botched execution methods? Potential for Eighth Amendment cruel and unusual punishment appeals? Apparently SCOTUS wants to take a look at the issue.

So, many states are wisely deciding to stay executions using this method until the Supremes come to a decision. After all, it’ll be a little hard to ‘undo’ the punishment, if SCOTUS rules for the defense.

Back to Judge Killer. When Michael Richard’s lawyers called to alert the court that they were having problems getting to the court by 5 p.m., they were told, essentially, “tough s**t”.   No extra hour, not even an extra minute to file the appeal. Richard’s lawyers wanted the stay based on the Baze case. And they would have eventually gotten it.

How do we know? Well, the US Supreme Court ordered Texas to halt an execution two days later, based on the same reason for appeal.

What does Judge Killer have to say about it?

“You’re asking me whether something different would have happened if we had stayed open,” Keller said, “and I think the question ought to be why didn’t they file something on time? They had all day.”

Let me first address the .000001% of what she said that isn’t ridiculous.

Yes, lawyers for defendants on death row routinely try to time their appeals to be last minute… because several last minute stays can add life span for the client (as opposed to filing each petition as early as possible). And while I don’t handle death penalty appeals, I think those who do should learn from this: have everything ready days or weeks in advance, and then park outside the court with all the necessary paperwork to run in at the last minute, so to avoid last minute ‘technical difficulties’.

Oddly though, while being .000001% ‘correct’, Judge Killer manages to also be 100% wrong.

No, they didn’t have “all day” as they should. Last time I checked, 5:20 p.m. today is still… today.

[Also see Mark Bennett’s blog to sign the complaint being filed in this matter.]

• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks (1)

The always excellent Adam Liptak writes about a ‘quirk’ of United States Supreme Court death penalty jurisprudence: the fact that it takes 4 justices to grant review, but 5 to stay an execution leads to the execution of defendants before their cases can be heard.

From ‘Going to Court, But Not in Time to Live”:

It is possible, then, for a death row inmate to persuade the court that his case is so important that it deserves a place on the court’s tiny docket of roughly 80 cases a year — but not so important that he should be allowed to stay alive in the meantime.

Consider the case of Luther J. Williams, who was put to death on Aug. 23 in Alabama. Four justices had voted to stay the execution.

Mr. Williams’s appeal included a challenge to the constitutionality of the chemicals used in lethal injections, which have the potential to cause excruciating torture if administered improperly. A month after his execution, the court agreed to hear that question in another case.

When you hear death penalty advocates insist that all defendants have had full access to the courts… remember that this is the definition of full access.

Supreme Court math used to yield different results. As Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. wrote in a 1986 decision, “the court has ordinarily stayed executions when four members have voted” to hear an appeal.

But Justice Powell, who was in those days often the swing vote, grew testy about the practice. It “illustrates how easily the system is manipulated in capital cases,” he wrote to the other justices after providing the fifth vote for a stay as a courtesy in a 1985 case.

By 1990, things had changed. “For the first time in recent memory,” Justice William J. Brennan Jr. wrote, “a man will be executed after the court has decided to hear his claim.” The man was James E. Smith, and he was put to death in Texas the day the stay was denied.

This is one of those situations where there’s a clear injustice, and a simple solution.

#1) The reason it doesn’t take 5 justices (out of 9 total) to grant a petition to hear a case in the Supreme Court is that they haven’t actually heard the case yet, so they don’t know how many total votes for reversal there might be. 4 out of 9 to grant review is perfectly reasonably. That fifth vote to reverse is frequently there.

#2) Requiring 5 out of 9 to grant a stay of execution is ridiculous, in light of #1.

#3) The current rules lead to absurd (never mind unfair, immoral, illogical, etc.) results. So change the rule. Make it 4 out of 9. Simple – ‘nuff said.

Gosh, next thing you know, ‘full access to the courts’ will mean they’ll be executing people because some lawyer forgot to file a petition on time, rather than on the basis of actual guilt. Or that executing the actual innocent defendant doesn’t rise to the level of cruel and unusual punishment.

Oh wait…

• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Robbie Cooper of UrbanGrounds has weighed in at the comments section of my post ‘A Staunch Pro Death Penalty Advocate Responds’.

For some background, the blogversation starts with Radley Balko, comes to “Execution is Proof of Guilt in Texas,” and has sparked a new thread at Defending People.

Before we get to the meat of Robbie’s comment, let me set the table.

First, Mark pointed out that Robbie was unaware that Texas does now indeed have Life without the possibility of parole in capital cases. And indeed, many Texas District Attorneys opposed giving the jury the option to sentence a defendant to LWOP. And support the destruction of evidence that could prove a defendant’s innocence post conviction, as long as we’re on the subject.

Most defense lawyers believe that opposition to the LWOP option was based, at least in part, in the prosecutors wanting to be able to subtly argue that if the defendant wasn’t executed, he’d be released soon - perhaps even ride the elevator down with the jurors!

Defense lawyers were overwhelmingly in favor of the Life Without Parole option. Go figure.

Back to the main points in Robbie’s comments as to why he favors the death penalty. #1 was ‘there ought to be LWOP’ combined with ‘convicted murderers can still kill while imprisoned’. The rest:

#2) Some people are just pure evil. And the world is a better place without them. Most of the people who are sentenced to die fit this description.

#3) The death penalty isn’t about deterrence. It isn’t about revenge. It’s about justice — it’s about making the penalty for committing the crime equal to or worse than the violence committed upon their victims. Some people commit such ghastly crimes, that death is the only suitable and just punishment.

#4) But mostly, I support it because I believe that the value of human life is so high, that it is best affirmed by killing those who would kill others; that the ultimate price for taking a human life should be to give up your own.

I’m glad you didn’t mention general deterrence.

OK. Point by point.

#2) Some people are just pure evil. Perhaps true, perhaps not. It’s somewhere between a matter of opinion, and a matter of semantics.

But given that the comments from Jeff Deustch earlier in the threads focused on the absolute mathematical certainty that you can’t have a perfect death penalty system and supporters should expect some innocent deaths, it seems out of place. 

I mean, we started the discussion with Balko’s point about Texas DA’s opposing DNA testing for an already executed defendant. Robbie, it’s that kind of thinking that answers your question:

Of the more than 1000 people executed in the U.S. and the more than 400 people executed by the State of Texas --- has a single one of them ever been exonerated by a court of law?

Not when folks aren’t allowed to investigate. Kind of makes it impossible to prove. And for the most part, well over 99.99% of the time, the defense lawyers stop working after their client is killed.

But defense lawyers should also acknowledge that we use a variation of this argument ourselves at times. If you can throw in a healthy dose of ‘the S.O.B. needed killing’ into your self defense argument in a murder trial, you’re going to do it. Yes, there are obvious differences, but let’s admit we aren’t above playing that card ourselves.

#3) The death penalty isn’t about deterrence or revenge. It’s about justice. Again, it’s only justice if you’ve got the right guy. And that’s one of my main problems with the death penalty.

Actually though, I think the point is about restitution. I think that’s the proper legal term for it.

If someone is convicted of theft, they are ordered to pay back what was stolen or damaged. If someone is convicted of a DWI involving a collision, they will be ordered to pay the owner of the other vehicle, or perhaps just the deductible if insurance paid.

The main argument, although rarely enunciated this way, that the State has going for it is the belief by the jury that the family of the decedent will feel better if the defendant is executed. I won’t pretend to be an expert on the subject, but I believe that in fact, there are studies that show that families who initially supported the death penalty in fact get no satisfaction from it.

Assuming that a loved one has been murdered, and that the defendant is the murderer, if the family members don’t actually get this ‘restitution’ as I’m labeling it, I think this argument fails. But, I think in some ways it’s the strongest argument for capital punishment.

#4) The value of human life is so high, that it is best affirmed by killing those who would kill others.

Honestly, and I’m going easy on this one… I just don’t get it.

You either believe #4, or you don’t.

This is an important subject; please feel free to weigh in…

• Print
• Comments (3)
• Trackbacks (1)

[Hat Tip: Dave Shapiro, who posted this article on the Austin Criminal Defense Lawyer’s Association listserv.]

UTEP hosted a conference called “Interrogations & Confessions: A Conference Exploring Current Research, Practice, and Policy,” last week. The Rio Grande Guardian wrote an article** about it.

The recent spate of DNA exonerations, usually in death penalty cases, has understandably increased interest in the previously widely disbelieved phenomenon of false confessions. The Innocence Project reports that fully one quarter of wrongful convictions involve false confessions:

False confessions and incriminating statements lead to wrongful convictions in 25 percent of cases. More than 350 jurisdictions now record interrogations.

False confessions are another leading cause of wrongful convictions. Twenty-five percent of cases involve a false confession or incriminating statement made by the defendant.

Of those cases, 35 percent were 18 or under and/or developmentally disabled. The Innocence Project encourages police departments to electronically record all custodial interrogations in their entirety in order to prevent coercion and to provide an accurate record of the proceedings.

More than 350 jurisdictions have voluntarily adopted policies to record interrogations. State supreme courts have taken action in Alaska, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Wisconsin. Illinois, Maine, New Mexico, and the District of Columbia require the taping of interrogations in homicide cases.

From the Rio Grande Guardian article:

Professor Ray Bull, from the University of Leicester, spoke on what really happens in police interviews with suspects. He helped to develop reforms in the United Kingdom. That country responded to problems within the criminal justice system and changed the way interrogations were conducted. Tape recording of all interviews with suspects is now mandatory.

“It’s a win-win situation,” said Meissner, who reported that in areas where interrogations are tape recorded, everyone is happy. Judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys and police who are often accused of using force, all can rely on the tape instead of someone’s word. There are fewer expert fees and court costs involved when interrogations are taped, he added.

So, the UK has it right. At least when it comes to capital cases in the United States, we need to go to an absolute rule: Eligibility for the Death Penalty Requires a Videotaped Confession.

We would need rules and jury instructions as well regarding the circumstances surrounding any ‘confessions’.

I assume this would satisfy folks like Jeffrey Deustch, who has been polite enough to engage me and other readers of the blog in a death penalty debate recently.

People who are less concerned with the ‘accuracy rate’ when it comes to the ultimate punishment will remain unconvincible.  But in the meantime, anyone else want to add Texas to that Innocence Project list?

[** Given the url, which ends with “/features_story.asp?story_no=1” I fear this link may go dead. If so, maybe you can use the search feature in the future to look for the story.]

• Print
• Comments (3)
• Trackbacks

Jeffrey Deutsch responds to my post “Execution is Proof of Guilt in Texas”:

Hello,

I'm a staunch pro-death penalty advocate. I can't speak for others, but I for one support every effort to follow up innocence possibilities for any convict, even one who has already been executed.

Among other considerations, how can people be expected to trust prosecutors, police or other officials who cover up evidence showing that someone who was executed wrongly?

I care about innocent people being convicted, whether of a traffic infraction, misdemeanor, felony or capital crime. Of course, I care in direct proportion to the severity of the potential punishment.

Furthermore, capital punishment especially requires a degree of public confidence that it will be applied to as few innocent people as humanly possible. Zero innocent victims is not compatible with any human, and necessarily imperfect, institution, but we need to do our best - and be seen to do our best - to save as many innocent people as possible. Otherwise, we jeopardize capital punishment itself.

Last but not least, I also care about the truth. Only in rare circumstances should officials lie or suppress the truth. To the contrary, investigation of the possibility that someone who was convicted and executed for a murder really was innocent is every reason to find the truth and proclaim it - whatever it may be - from the rooftops.

Jeff Deutsch

Jeff, I disagree with your conclusions, but I appreciate the comment, as well as the lack of anonymity. Too many use anonymous commenting on blogs as a way to vent without opening themselves up to any scrutiny or critical response.

Actually, your post fascinates me in some ways. When I say I disagree, I mean more precisely, that I agree with almost everything you write except for the first sentence about being staunchly pro-death penalty. Especially given the rest of it.

We know that police and prosecutors have indeed covered up or hidden Brady material, i.e., evidence that tends to exonerate a defendant. Yes, it may be rare, but you point out that it makes us distrust ‘the system’.

You care “in direct proportion to the severity of the punishment”. Me too. Frankly, I can’t make myself get all worked up when someone is wrongly accused of speeding. It shouldn’t happen, and it’s a shame, but frankly, you were probably speeding five minutes before you got the ticket, or yesterday, and even if you’re the one person on earth who has never sped, it’s ‘only a traffic ticket’.

But then, if you care in direct proportion to the punishment, you have to care the most about capital punishment.

From a logical perspective, I appreciate that you acknowledged that support of the death penalty means accepting that some innocent accused will be put to death or perhaps more fairly ‘murdered by the state’. I’m not being a smart-alec here. Many death penalty supporters insist the innocent have never been executed.

That’s a ludicrous position and you don’t try to make it. Humans err, death penalty trials are abundantly human; death penalty advocates should accept that there is an error rate, even if the exact rate is unknowable. That doesn’t make it 0%.

I just don’t understand, given the premises, how someone with your views can be staunchly pro-death.

Why is it so important to put people to death in the first place?

• Print
• Comments (5)
• Trackbacks (2)

Radley Balko on why Texas might try to prevent anti-death penalty groups, as well as the rest of the world, from finding out whether Texas executed an innocent man:

Now, I can think of some reasons why a prosecutor would want to destroy a piece of physical evidence that could prove that the state executed an innocent man. But none of them are compatible with...um...being a human being.

Perhaps, for example, the prosecutor was one of the prosecutors who worked on the case, and doesn't want the stain on his career that might come with a wrongful execution. Perhaps he wants to avoid the inevitable stain on Texas' already execution-happy reputation that would come with proof that the state executed an innocent man. Perhaps he knows that proof of a wrongful execution will make it much more difficult for him to win death penalty cases in the future.

But here's the thing: While I can perhaps see a prosecutor harboring such sentiment deep down inside, I can't possibly conceive of anyone actually making these sorts of arguments publicly. Or with a straight face.

Claude Jones was executed in 2000 for the robbery/murder of a liquor store owner. During trial, the State’s expert proclaimed that a hair found at the scene ‘matched’ that of the defendant. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals cited the ‘matching hair’ as the corroboration necessary to affirm Jones’ death sentence.

Blogs have recently been covering the story of Texas’ attempt to block finding out whether this ‘crucial’ hair evidence would have actually exonerated Jones. See: StandDown Texas Project, the Innocence Project, Jeralyn Merritt, the Texas Moratorium Project, Capital Defense Weekly, DeathWatch, Grits for Breakfast, PWC Consulting, and finally, a tie for my two favorite blog post titles about this story, from Amnesty International USA “Hair Today, Not Gone Tomorrow” and from Yank in London ‘We’ll expect a retraction and an apology”.

Speaking of retractions/apologies, let’s get to the title of this post “Execution is Proof of Guilt”. There are definitely folks that need Jones to not be found innocent after the fact: death penalty supporters. Because he has already been executed, he is and will remain guilty.

I make this prediction. There will be 1 of 2 possible reactions to the results of the DNA test.

#1) The DNA test proves that indeed it was Jones’ hair at the scene of the crime. The reaction will be, basically “Ha Ha Ha,” and “See, we told you that the anti-death penalty crowd is just a bunch of murder lovers”.

#2) The DNA test proves that it was not Jones hair at the scene. The reaction from the pro-death penalty folks? Will it be, good grief an innocent man was executed? No. We will see all sorts of rationalizations that “just because the hair follicle wasn’t his, doesn’t mean he didn’t do it,” and “they didn’t prove his innocence”.

I’ll follow up on this when the results are in. In the meantime, anyone want to predict other possible reactions from the pro-Death crowd?

• Print
• Comments (2)
• Trackbacks (2)