Posted on 09/06/2014 5:36:11 AM PDT by exhaustguy
Henry McCollum and Leon Brown, two men who have sat on North Carolina's death row for three decades for the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl, were set free this week after the discovery of new DNA evidence.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
Is that you, Mike Nifong?
Judges too. Sometimes new evidence is brought up that would clear the convict and they refuse to listen to it.
For capital cases only.
It’s one of the reasons I’ve always said no JAG should be allowed to be a Chief of Military Justice until he or she has been a defense counsel. Perspective is everything in reviewing evidence.
Better yet, let him finish their sentence.
Interesting you bring up Nifong. The lacrosse three received millions and did not spend a day in jail. What is 30 years worth? Nifong spent one day in jail. How many days should the police and prosecutor get in prison for 30 years?
Sure, all evidence is SUPPOSED to be available to the defense. Do you really think that prosecutors always do what they are supposed to do?
Public defenders are the lowest paid lawyers and they are often filled by people who are fresh out of law school and are just minding their time until they can get into something more lucrative.
Even if a public defender has the type of heroic personality who will look under every nook and cranny to ensure his client is defended fully, they just don’t have the funds to do so and they have a few dozen client files sitting on their desks at all times that need their attention.
Sometimes even governors. See Rick Perry and Cameron Todd Willingham
I don't know what most cops actually do, but showbiz accounts of cops doing their thing show them suggesting to defendants that they'll be able to see their loved ones if they confess, with the (false) implication that they'll go free, if only they come clean. After a full day of interrogation and perhaps sleep deprivation, at the end of which they might not be able to see straight, let alone think straight, a confession might seem like something other than a confession to tired and discombobulated defendants. That's why they should really have lawyers present at their interrogations, so someone who understands the legal implications of defendant statements is keeping them out of trouble.
Maybe they were the reincarnations of men who had unjustly prosecuted innocent people, getting their just deserts.
Defense counsel for capital cases tends to be superior because the rates are higher. My Cousin Vinny, while amusing, is Hollywood's version of reality, which is to say that it is fantasy dressed up as reality.
You’re right this is not a perfect world. Do away with the Justice System until it is perfected.
Incidentally the Court Order in the case, with even LESS evidence, has no problem STATING UNEQUIVOCALLY, that the fellow whose DNA is on the cigarette butt behind the store, nowhere near the little girls body, is the rapist-murder.
DNA cannot prove innocenceIt can certainly prove "Not Guilty", if you don't prefer to use the term "innocent". It's the same to me either way.
Consider the obvious body fluids left by a rapist. The DNA can be so strikingly different that it excludes the majority of the global population, including a given suspect. That is exculpatory in the extreme, isn't it?
Or blond hair determined to have been left by the suspect. That belongs to certain genetic markers that can't be fooled by hair dye. If the guy being questioned has red hair, doesn't DNA from both sets of hair follicles prove inmocence, or "not guilty" if you prefer?
And I demand God explain why these men had to sit in prison wrongfully for so long.
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Let me know what he has to say about it
I’m not saying it is and I’m not saying that we should do away with it until it is, but how about giving life sentences, and seizing the assets, of prosecutors who can be shown to have purposefully prosecuted criminals who they knew to be innocent?
I know, I express my outrage at injustice done to His children all the time. Doesn’t He bill Himself as a God of righteousness and justice? He hasn’t explained yet, but it doesn’t keep me from pointing out the injustice.
THIS! I had a rude awakening to this fact. Its a game, like politics, they just want to WIN, both sides. The person I know, ended up having to plea, even though they were completely innocent.
So yes, it does happen. Scary really.
Defense counsel probably knows if the accused are guilty, and in most cases, they are. Prosecutors don't know, but they'll settle for winning, secure in the knowledge that in most cases, the accused are in fact guilty.
The settlement received by the 3 has never been made known to my knowledge. At any rate, at least one of the three, Seligman, pledged to use his towards exonerating others who say they’ve been wrongly convicted. This may even be one of those cases.
As for the police and prosecutors, I wish that they would have to serve the time when they withhold evidence that lands someone in prison. Maybe that would get them to be honest.
Nifong’s one day sentence was a joke, a travesty. Same for this situation.
Certainly does but still, no DNA is no different than no finger prints, it cannot prove innocence.
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