treebeard901
a year ago
I have found most people across the U.S. do not believe in due process any more.
From Texas to California, as long as people are told that someone is guilty, they do not even need a trial or arrest before their basic human rights are taken away. This extends to taking a life as well.
The public needs to understand that the death penalty in the way it has been known is being modernized. There are many ways for the state to conduct an execution. These are active today. With no due process.
And with full bipartisan support.
int_19h
a year ago
What I find truly amazing is those cases where the courts have ruled that there's new evidence in favor of innocence doesn't matter because of matters of procedure ("too late to appeal" etc). Why do even call it "justice system" if it's so obviously not about anything resembling justice?
readthenotes1
a year ago
There is an old adage about systems: at some point they grow to only care about themselves and not to provide the service for which they were created
int_19h
a year ago
I don't think it ever was different. It feels like all this stuff we tell ourselves about how it all _ought_ to operate is used mostly to justify what actually happens as "due process".
user
a year ago
JumpCrisscross
a year ago
> have found most people across the U.S. do not believe in due process any more
How did you find this?
treebeard901
a year ago
I have been given a form of a death penalty even though I have never been arrested for a crime. It started from a false accusation in Tennessee, which ended up being the problem of the Colorado Attorney General, which was a former employer of mine. Turns out it wasnt a real job and they worked with TN to declare me incompetent to stand trial. I have tried everything just to even be charged for what they say I allegedy did 10 years ago.
They have violated my due process rights. I am told by everyone I get no arrest or trial. It is a long story.
At any rate, I can say that Dallas, Memphis, Nashville, Denver, San Diego, L.A., Santa Monica, and now San Francisco at the city, with police and city services and all the way to the state Govts, including the Feds and DOJ all agree to let what they call a BBQ to continue. Basically, the idea is to take the accusation of a crime as a conviction, and use it to cook the accused so that they die before even charges have to be filed.
Welcome to America
threatofrain
a year ago
> Greitens set up a panel to review the case but when Mike Parson, the current Republican governor, took over, he disbanded that board and pushed for the execution to proceed.
> In January, Wesley Bell, the Democratic prosecuting attorney in St Louis who has championed criminal justice reforms, filed a motion to overturn Williams’s conviction. Bell cited repeated DNA testing finding that Williams’s fingerprints were not on the knife.
> The governor also rejected Williams’s clemency request on Monday, which noted that the victim’s family and three jurors supported calls to revoke his death sentence. The US supreme court denied a final request to halt the execution on Tuesday, with the three liberal justices dissenting.
shiroiushi
a year ago
>Bell cited repeated DNA testing finding that Williams’s fingerprints were not on the knife.
Why would DNA testing have anything to do with fingerprints?
This is like using pylint to look for errors in your FORTRAN code.
JumpCrisscross
a year ago
> Why would DNA testing have anything to do with fingerprints?
Just the Guardian being the Guardian. Fortunately, they link to their source which states "three DNA experts examined testing from the knife 'and each has independently concluded that Mr. Williams is excluded as the source of the male DNA on the handle of the murder weapon'" [1].
[1] https://apnews.com/article/missouri-death-row-inmate-dna-evi...
shiroiushi
a year ago
Thanks for that. Wow, that's some shoddy journalism: does the Guardian writer not know the difference between DNA and fingerprints?
JumpCrisscross
a year ago
Apparently "staff with the prosecutors’ office had mishandled the weapon after the killing – touching it without gloves before the trial," which "made it impossible to determine if Williams’s fingerprints could have been on the knife earlier." Looks like wires getting crossed and nobody editing.
(Of course, that comes from the same Guardian article.)
aaplok
a year ago
Maybe a clumsy attempt at referring to DNA fingerprinting [0]?
rob74
a year ago
Ok, so in this case it's party politics after all. Which means Mr. Williams might still be alive if this wasn't an election year?
JumpCrisscross
a year ago
> Mr. Williams might still be alive if this wasn't an election year?
Parson isn't running for governor this year [1]. He's focussed on his legacy.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Missouri_gubernatorial_el...
rob74
a year ago
Thanks for the info, but it's still an election year, in which Republicans generally want to demonstrate how "tough on crime" they are, so in this case they are more likely to set an example, especially if a Democrat opposes it?
JumpCrisscross
a year ago
> are more likely to set an example, especially if a Democrat opposes it?
This is an unfalsifiable hypothesis--everyone is entitled to their own beliefs. What we can say is the people involved have had consistent positions for years as this case snaked its way through Missouri's and our nation's highest courts.
To the extent there are near-term electioneering interests, it's on the part of the prosecutor who sought to overturn the conviction: Mr. Bell is the Democrats' Congressional candidate for Missouri's 1st District [1].
[1] https://missouriindependent.com/2024/08/06/wesley-bell-defea...
mdhb
a year ago
Killing someone on flimsy evidence while being fully aware that it’s incredibly flimsy evidence in order to “win votes” is some of the most abhorrent shit of all time.