I'm also going to be honest. The United States is the only modern industrialized country among our allies that still has it. (And Japan only uses it very, very rarely. Compared to the number of executions we have annually, it's not uncommon for a year to go by in Japan were they have none.)
It's time the United States gets out of the dark ages and ends what is clearly an uncivilized and at times, barbaric practice. Capital punishment is never used for justice or a deterrent - nowadays, it's more like revenge.
I consider the Death Penalty an abomination and incredibly hypocritical. To punish someone for killing another, we make the decision to kill them more barbarically? That is not the way.
The death penalty is barbaric and cruel and unusual punishment. Not to mention many innocent people are on death row and some have even been executed despite clear evidence that they were truly innocent and then the government hide, alter, and even destroy the proof that they just killed someone who did nothing wrong. There have even been a few who died for murders that never even happened and the supposed victim being found alive and perfectly healthy months even years later.
Can people explain how the death penalty in barbaric in nature or fundamentally unjust? I get all the practical reasons why it sucks, but how is it "vengeful"? I can see it how it could definitely satisfy a desire for vengeance, but that doesn't make it an inherently vengeful act to me. I wouldn't consider people guilty of crimes against humanity being sentenced to death to be vengeful or unjust. Icing say, the Boston marathon bomber seems pretty fair.
Random question: is it not possible that what you have just outlined here is actually a reason to change how a government goes about implementing the death penalty?
How so? By bringing back firing squads?
I actually admire that man who was just released after thirty years on death row for telling his true feelings about the correction system (telling his jailers "You will face God") rather than express any gratitude towards the system that let him rot.
And LDS man, that is a baseless accusation you just made towards a charity organization, I might add.
I find it very interesting that after one very anti-death penalty person posted that the death penalty is "at times barbaric," you feel that it needs no justification to simply assert that it is barbaric. Second, which government are you speaking of that is hiding evidence? I have no problem with the idea that some local governments may be doing such horrible things (because some are very clearly worse than others), but if you are speaking of a conspiracy theory that the entire government is perpetually out to hide evidence then I will not let that slide without compelling evidence.
Speaking of which, would you like to present evidence that any appreciable number of death penalty cases have involved the supposed victim being found alive later? And did that cause the legal system to lift the sentence?
From a link in the first provided link.I did read the links, you cited one case. And it did not present any proof. Just opinion, as most blogs do.
Why would she do this unless they could prove he wasn't the person responsible?Last week, Simon walked out of prison a free man after Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez announced that her office, after a yearlong investigation, was vacating the charges against him and ending his 37-year sentence.
The investigation by the Medill Innocence Project, she said, "involved a series of alarming tactics that were not only coercive and absolutely unacceptable by law enforcement standards, they were potentially in violation of Mr. Simon's constitutionally protected rights."
Simon, who moved to Milwaukee from Chicago in the 1980s to find work, is not granting interviews, his attorney, Terry Ekl, told me. But Ekl echoed Alvarez's criticism of former Northwestern journalism professor David Protess, who led the Medill Innocence Project, and the investigator on the team, Paul Ciolino.
"In my opinion, Northwestern, Protess and Ciolino framed Simon so that they could secure the release of (Anthony) Porter and make him into the poster boy for the anti-death penalty movement," he said.
But that neat and clean narrative unraveled with the discovery of how the confession by Simon was obtained. Protess discovered that Green's mother had mentioned Simon was with Green and Hillard at the park the day of the murders, so Protess went after Simon in an effort to clear Porter.
Protess and two of his journalism students came to Simon's home in the 200 block of E. Wright St. in Milwaukee and told him they were working on a book about unsolved murders. According to Simon, Protess told him, "We know you did it."
Then Simon received a visit from Ciolino and another man. They had guns and badges and claimed to be Chicago police officers. They said they knew he had killed Green and Hillard, so he better confess if he hoped to avoid the death penalty.
They showed him a video of his ex-wife, Inez Jackson, implicating him for the crime — a claim she recanted on her death bed in 2005 — and another video of a supposed witness to the crime who turned out to be an actor.
They coached Simon through a videotaped confession, promising him a light sentence and money from book and movie deals on the case. Simon, admittedly on a three-day crack cocaine bender, struggled to understand what was going on.
Perhaps worst of all, they hooked up Simon with a free lawyer to represent him, Jack Rimland, without telling him that Rimland was a friend of Ciolino and Protess and in on their plan to free Porter.
At Rimland's urging, Simon pleaded guilty to the crime and even offered what sounded like a sincere apology to Green's family in court. As added leverage to make him cooperate, Rimland had told Simon he was suspected in a Milwaukee murder, though nothing ever came of it.
When his abuses came to light, Protess was suspended by Northwestern and has since retired from there. The Medill Innocence Project has been renamed The Medill Justice Project. Protess isn't talking, but he is now president of the Chicago Innocence Project, which investigates wrongful convictions. Ciolino put out a statement saying Simon also had confessed to a Milwaukee TV reporter, his lawyer and others.
"You explain that," he said.
We know now that the explanation was that Simon was snared in a trap set by people who wanted to end the death penalty, no matter what the cost. Once they convinced Simon it was for his own good, he was all in.
Key words. "According to the Innocent Project's own website."According to the Innocent Project's own website, it's record thusfar is 349 DNA exonerations and 140 real perpetrators in wrongful convictions found.
Where do you get 99%? How many cases does the Innocence Project take on? It's easy to claim great success if they only go for the cases that are murky. Heck I remember one 20+ year old case that got thrown out because the court lost the evidence. IP claimed that as a success.If this allegation is true, it would mean a more than 99% chance success rate.
So the IP picks and chooses the easier cases based mostly on if DNA is available or if the defendant was identified through eyewitness testimony. It gets easier to discredit eyewitnesses as time goes one. Memory is a tricky thing. DNA testing is also a lot better so tests can be definitive now when they weren't 20-30 years ago.All potential clients go through an extensive screening process to determine whether or not they are likely to be innocent. If they pass the process, the Innocence Project takes up their case. In roughly half of the cases that the Innocence Project takes on, the clients' guilt is reconfirmed by DNA testing. Of all the cases taken on by the Innocence Project, about 43% of clients were proven innocent, 42% were confirmed guilty, and evidence was inconclusive and not probative in 15% of cases. In about 40% of all DNA exoneration cases, law enforcement officials identified the actual perpetrator based on the same DNA test results that led to an exoneration.[23]
You claimed it was a baseless accusation when in fact I had an actual event I was referring to. I don't care if you recant or not. I didn't say they made a habit of it. Just that one had and people should wonder what else they are willing to do.If you can prove that the Innocent Project makes a habit of such serious crimes that have been confirmed by legal authorities, I will gladly recant my statement.
Comments on their own site? Pray tell why would a site allow comments accusing them of underhanded tricks? Any number of people have claimed to mean well but in reality their actions are less than stellar. Hence the saying: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."Until then, they have been ranked #1 out of 16 non-profits dedicated to such work by 126 National Criminal Justice Experts. and comments on their own site seem to suggest anything but a sinister motive:
Cameron Todd Willingham was executed for supposedly setting a fire that killed his three girls.
Other cases of wrongful executions where there is evidence of the convicted's innocence include:
You're referencing a 70 year old case as proof that the DP is wrong today?George Stinney- This is racism at its worst.
Carlos De Luna-
Troy Davis- Many witnesses have said that Davis wasn't the killer. More than half of them have said this.
roy Anthony Davis (October 9, 1968 – September 21, 2011)[1][2] was an American man convicted of and executed for the August 19, 1989, murder of police officer Mark MacPhail in Savannah, Georgia. MacPhail was working as a security guard at a Burger King restaurant when he intervened to defend a man being assaulted in a nearby parking lot. During Davis's 1991 trial, seven witnesses testified they had seen Davis shoot MacPhail, and two others testified Davis had confessed the murder to them. There were 34 witnesses who testified for the prosecution, and six others for the defense, including Davis. Although the murder weapon was not recovered, ballistic evidence presented at trial linked bullets recovered at or near the scene to those at another shooting in which Davis was also charged. He was convicted of murder and various lesser charges, including the earlier shooting, and was sentenced to death in August 1991.
Davis maintained his innocence up to his execution. In the 20 years between his conviction and execution, Davis and his defenders secured support from the public, celebrities, and human rights groups. Amnesty International and other groups such as National Association for the Advancement of Colored People took up Davis's cause. Prominent politicians and leaders, including former President Jimmy Carter, Rev. Al Sharpton, Pope Benedict XVI, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former U.S. Congressman from Georgia and presidential candidate Bob Barr, and former FBI Director and judge William S. Sessions called upon the courts to grant Davis a new trial or evidentiary hearing. In July 2007, September 2008, and October 2008, execution dates were scheduled, but each execution was stayed shortly before it was to take place.
In 2009, the Supreme Court of the United States ordered the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia to consider whether new evidence "that could not have been obtained at the time of trial clearly establishes [Davis's] innocence." The evidentiary hearing was held in June 2010. The defense presented affidavits from seven of the nine trial witnesses whose original testimony had identified Davis as the murderer, but who it contended had changed or recanted their previous testimony. Some of these writings disavowed parts of prior testimony, or implicated Sylvester "Redd" Coles, who Davis contended was the actual triggerman. The state presented witnesses, including the police investigators and original prosecutors, who described a careful investigation of the crime, without any coercion. Davis did not call some of the witnesses who had supposedly recanted, despite their presence in the courthouse; accordingly their affidavits were given little weight by the judge. Evidence that Coles had confessed to the killing was excluded as hearsay because Coles was not subpoenaed by the defense to rebut it.
In an August 2010 decision, the conviction was upheld. The court described defense efforts to upset the conviction as "largely smoke and mirrors"[3] and found that several of the proffered affidavits were not recantations at all. Subsequent appeals, including to the Supreme Court, were rejected, and a fourth execution date was set for September 21, 2011. Nearly one million people signed petitions urging the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to grant clemency.[4] The Board denied clemency[5] and, on September 21, it refused to reconsider its decision.[6] After a last minute appeal to the United States Supreme Court was denied, the sentence was carried out through lethal injection on September 21, 2011.[7]
Federal hearing
In response to the Supreme Court order, a two-day hearing was held in June 2010 in a federal district court in Savannah in front of Judge William Moore.[102][103] Former prosecution witness Antoine Williams stated he did not know who had shot MacPhail, and that because he was illiterate he could not read the police statements he had signed in 1989.[104] Other prosecution witnesses Jeffrey Sapp and Kevin McQueen testified that Davis had not confessed to them as they had stated at the initial trial.[105] Darrell Collins also recanted his previous evidence that he had seen Davis shoot Cooper and MacPhail.[104] The witnesses variously described their previous testimony against Davis as being the result of feeling scared, of feeling frightened and pressured by police or to get revenge in a conflict with Davis.[104][105] Anthony Hargrove testified that Redd Coles had admitted the killing to him. The state's lawyers described Hargrove's testimony as hearsay evidence; Judge William T. Moore permitted the evidence but stated that unless Coles appeared, he might give the evidence "no weight whatsoever."[104][105] Another witness making a similar statement was heard, but a third was rejected by Judge Moore as the claims were inadmissible hearsay because Coles was not called as a witness and given the opportunity for rebuttal.[103][106] Moore criticized the decision not to call Coles, saying that he was "one of the most critical witnesses to Davis's defense". One of Davis's lawyers stated that the day before they had been unsuccessful in serving a subpoena on Coles; Moore responded that the attempt had been made too late, given that the hearing date had been set months in advance.[103]
State attorneys called current and former police officers and the two lead prosecutors, who testified that the investigation had been careful, and that no witnesses had been coerced or threatened.[103] The lead detective testified that his investigation was "very meticulous and careful… I was in no rush just to pick the first guy we got our hands on. I wanted the right guy."[105] He stated that witnesses gave "strikingly similar descriptions on how the shooter was dressed", mostly describing the shooter as wearing a white T-shirt and dark pants, which other witnesses said Davis was wearing that evening.[105] A state attorney asserted that the testimony of at least five prosecution witnesses remained unchallenged, and the evidence of Davis's guilt was overwhelming.[103] In July 2010, Davis's lawyers filed a motion asking Moore to reconsider his decision to exclude testimony from a witness to a confession by Coles,[106] but in August 2010, Moore stood by his initial decision, stating that in not calling Coles, Davis's lawyers were seeking to implicate Coles without desiring his rebuttal.[107]
Moore ruled that executing an innocent person would violate the Eighth Amendment. "However, Mr. Davis is not innocent."[101] In his decision, Moore wrote: "while Mr. Davis's new evidence casts some additional, minimal doubt on his conviction, it is largely smoke and mirrors."[3][101] Of the seven papers described as recantations by the defense, Moore found that only one was wholly credible and two were partly credible.[101][108] He did not consider Coles' alleged confessions because of the failure of Davis's lawyers to subpoena Coles, and suggested that Davis should appeal directly to the Supreme Court.[108] In November 2010, the federal appeals panel dismissed an appeal on the case, without ruling on its merits. They stated that Davis should appeal the case directly to the U.S. Supreme Court "because he had exhausted his other avenues of relief."[109] Rosemary Barkett, one of the panel judges, later released a statement saying that although she agreed with the decision, she still believed that Davis should be given a new trial.[110]
Porter was convicted of the murders. The IP used an innocent man and tricked him into confessing to murders he didn't commit. This freed the first man. This man filed a civil case against the city and lost! Why did he lose? Because the city proved that he had committed the murders!LDS Man, where in that Wikipedia link is anything about them causing a miscarriage of justice and freeing an actual murderer.
So a miscarriage of justice is okay if it goes one way but not the other? And that is only the cases you know about.I apologize. I meant to say, if this accusation is true, then they only cause a miscarriage of justice rather than undo one in less than 1% of the cases they take.
And honestly, I was just trying to give my reasons here. (I donate to the Innocence Project, among other things.) You sound like you're looking for a fight.
And the Innocence Project? More like the "Frame this guy so we can free the ACTUAL MURDERER!!! Project." Makes me wonder what else they've done to push their agenda.
I didn't say they made a habit of it. Just that one had and people should wonder what else they are willing to do.
IP does good work but they do have a goal and some people are willing to do ANYTHING to achieve that goal.