Posted on 01/23/2008 9:07:47 PM PST by ex 98C MI Dude
A Colorado judge Tuesday threw out Tim Masters' 1999 murder conviction after DNA evidence pointed to another suspect, and Masters was freed after spending more than nine years behind bars.
(Excerpt) Read more at edition.cnn.com ...
This kid spent 9 years in because of some badged idiot's 'feeling', while a real murder was stalking the streets.
The kid was 15 at the time of the murder. The body was dumped in a field in back of his house. The other suspect was the girl’s ex boyfriend.
Where was he from 15 to 28? What kind of hell was he put through in those years and how is it possible no DNA was done all those years???
Just another case of ‘we got a conviction. ARen’t we great” - and the devil about trying to find the real perp, which might take a little real work.
I’m not a ‘sue’ person, but I hope he gets enough to never have to work the rest of his life. He’s earned ‘early retirement’
The prisons of the US have (IMHO) many hundreds of innocent men rotting away. This is especially the case for rape convictions.
Thank G-d for DNA testing.
Last time I checked there were 300 DNA matches (for me) in my tiny state of Maryland. This $hit does not work.
There seem to be a lot of cases like this showing up. Legacy of the Nifongs.
after spending more than nine years behind bars
I know the system is not perfect but come up with a better one!
It would be easy. Require actual evidence that the accused committed the crime. The rest of the process would remain the same.
As it is, the state’s burden of evidence keeps getting revised downward.
Between 15 and 28 he was leading a normal life. He spent some time in the military. He was working a job. Then someone decided they wanted to close this case and lied to the jury. There was absolutely NO EVIDENCE that he did anything.
This kind of thing will continue as long as the people who do this (PROSECUTORS) don’t face punishment of their own. The whole “immunity” thing is wrong in cases like this.
What the hell are you talking about?
I’d love to know what database you accessed that would tell you how many ‘matchs’ there are in a given state. AFAIK no such database exists, and unless you were heavily cloned, the chances of someone else exactly matching you DNA-wise is in the billions-to-one range.
Matching the entire sequence is in the billions. Matching current guidelines is in the millions.
So how was it being on the O.J. Simpson jury?
Amazing, isn't it? This guy was slated to spend the rest of his life behind bars for a conviction of which there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime.
As someone posted earlier, there are probably many men serving sentences for rape, convicted on nothing more than "he said, she said."
If we are going to send people to prison for the rest of their adult lives, the least we can ask for is hard, physical evidence tying them to the crime. Doing otherwise solves nothing. Sure, a family may have gotten "closure" but in the end an innocent man was imprisoned while a psychopath still walks free.
I see from the article you linked to that DNA matching suffers from the same problem fingerprinting does. In the ‘authorities’ rush to get a conviction, they are using too low of a matching standard to guarantee they have the right person. All the while telling the jury that they have irrefutable DNA proof.
My respect for our ‘legal’ system drops another notch.
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