Posted on 02/09/2014 11:47:07 AM PST by nickcarraway
Two men behind bars for more than half their lives over a triple murder walked free this week after DNA evidence tore holes in their convictions.
Antonio Yarbough and Sharrif Wilson were teenagers when prison doors clanked shut behind them. Now, in their late 30s, they can hardly believe they're out.
What does freedom feel like? "I'm still going through it right now," Yarbough said Friday. DNA frees 2 men in N.Y. triple murder
"I haven't slept yet. I've been up for two days now. I have no words for it right now." Nearly 22 years of hard time
Imagine more than two decades in a maximum security prison. Add to that the fact that you're accused of killing your mother, your sister and your cousin.
As if that's not enough, you were the one who discovered their lifeless, bloodied bodies when you opened the door to your home one night.
If it's hard to imagine what that's like, Yarbough will tell you.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Your welcome to explain how so many people end up behind bars for crimes they did not commit. I’m not saying there is a conspiracy. I’m just saying the saying the incentives, in the American system, are more heavily weighted towards conviction than acquittal. Unfortunately, many prosecutors
A few observations.
1. The salaries of prosecutors are often higher than defense lawyers.
2. The prosecutor has an unlimited credit card to use in the process of attaining a conviction. A defense attorney only has the funds that an accused has access to use for his defense.
3. There is no penalty for malicious prosecution. If somebody wrongly convicted sues and wins, the funds are not coming out of the prosecutor’s pockets.
4. The best way for a prosecuting attorney to advance his career, whether it be District Attorney, judge, or politician, is to win cases. For an unethical prosecutor, he doesn’t necessarily consider whether or not the accused did it. If a person fits the evidence, he’ll do.
If you don't care enough to do that, Fido, don't bark about it. You can stay out in the dog house you have earned. Because these things don't happen in a vacuum. The taxpayers are also the voters and they create these corrupt jurisdictions.
Have a little reality to throw some cold water on your stupid fantasy of taxpayer victims.
“After reviewing DNA evidence, District Attorney Kenneth P. Thompson said the previous convictions for the 1992 murders in Brooklyn would most likely not stand up in court again and agreed the two men should be freed.”
Like to see the transcript. There is awful lot missing from the article. I have sat on juries and you just don’t take the prosecutions song and dance.
For death penalty cases the standard needs to be ‘beyond any doubt whatsoever’.
The system is supposed to be based on reasonable doubt. The fact that there was reasonable doubt, regardless of what their criminals were or whether they had a lower level of participation in the crime, is supposed to set them free.
By your standards, no jury would ever be able to convict anyone of a crime unless they witnessed the crime themselves.
Corruption it is. The police lied to get false convictions. All lies are the work of Satan period. Also it is political because re-elections are often campaigned with conviction rates for DA’s.
Interestingly, some of the high-profile cases of questionable prosecutions in New York City in recent years involve police officers as the defendants. Defense attorneys have opted for bench trials in some of these cases, because they don't think their clients have any chance of securing an acquittal from a jury of minorities.
The point of post 49 was to rebut the inference in your post 15 that it’s the juror’s fault when an innocent person goes to jail, and the point of post 52 is to comment on your post 51 when you infer that the jury system should be done away with.
As I told you, you would be surprised as to what people will confess to when they are being questioned by police about a crime. If the police think you did it, they will manipulate your statements to make it seem like you’re guilty of something.
That’s why it is so important to never talk to the police, unless your lawyer is with you throughout the whole process.
When it comes down to it, the system is into closing cases, not necessarily solving them.
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The defendant who lied did so because he felt threatened and hoped by turning on his friend he would be let go. It’s easy to understand how a 15 year old being questioned without a lawyer would feel scared. The police most likely grilled him for hours and even roughed him up a bit until he broke down and signed a false statement just to be done with the questioning.
Political expedience?
****
Then, last year, the right shred of evidence came along in the form of a DNA sample from
a rape-murder committed in 1999.
It matched DNA found under the fingernails of Yarbough’s mother, indicating that
the same killer probably committed both crimes. In 1999, Yarbough and Wilson were
in prison and couldn’t have committed the second murder.
**********
Apparently the DNA couldn’t and didn’t matched either of the convicted but yet they were found guilty.
The DA is looking at some other convictions apparently for some reason.
-—Thompson came into office in January with promises to restore justice to the wrongfully
convicted. This case is part of a review of Brooklyn killings from the 1980s and early 1990s.—
It was the Prosecutor who threatened them with death. In my opinion he should be in prison tomorrow and spent the next 22 years of his worthless life bent over a prison bunk.
That is pretty much what Yarbough has said and that is why he doesn’t hold a grudge against
Wilson. Simply because he knows they did the same thing to Wilson that they did to him.
The CNN article at the link gives more detail that is in the excerpt for the thread.
You don’t talk to the police without a lawyer. You have no obligation to talk to the police period except in limited circumstances.
Get rid of jury trials and have judges decide everything ? That’s a system far easier to corrupt because everyone - cops, lawyers and judges - knows each other.
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