The Case of Troy Davis

[weakwarrior]

I think you get more of the "Hang em, no matter what" people, and some of the impartial apathetic people, and less of the presumed innocent people. In the jury questionnaire they outright ask if you are opposed to the death penalty. Those people who support the death penalty, are also probably more likely to believe in harsh sentencing and are probably easier to convince.

I maybe am misunderstanding your point. Are you saying you think people who say no death penalty no matter what should be on a jury deciding a death penalty case? That doesn´t seem very reasonable - of course the accused will not get the death penalty which requires a unanimous vote in most (all?) states. Like Pete said the possibility of the death penalty is not up to the jury to decide - it´s up to the legislative branch. "Jury of your peers" is not possible in this case. So what do you propose? What about life imprisonment - some people object to that as well? Ultimately you need a jury to decide what follows the laws that are in existance at the time. If someone says they can´t do that, then no, they should not be on a jury. This probably is a straw-man argument and you mean something more nuanced; I´m just missing what.

[--Pete]

Hi,

I think you get more of the "Hang em, no matter what" people, and some of the impartial apathetic people, and less of the presumed innocent people.

That seems to be the prevailing opinion and is exactly what I question. I've seen no study that supports or negates that opinion. Perhaps it is true, perhaps not.

In the jury questionnaire they outright ask if you are opposed to the death penalty.

There have been documented cases where a guilty person was either found innocent or, more often, the jury was hung because one or more anti-capital punishment people on the jury refused to find the accused guilty for fear that the death penalty would be imposed. So, in capital cases, it is necessary to ensure that the jury will not be influenced in their deliberations of guilt by extraneous considerations of punishment. After all, just because a person is not opposed to the death penalty does not imply that that person will call for that penalty every time it is offered.

Those people who support the death penalty, are also probably more likely to believe in harsh sentencing and are probably easier to convince.

As I said above, possible but unproven.

Like the jury I sat on recently . . . are the percentage of the population who are not rational thinkers.

This gets us even further on a tangent, but for a long time now I've felt that we need professional jurors. A new profession of people with legal training at about the paralegal level, with scientific and forensic understanding at about the high school science teacher's level, and with training or aptitude in rational and logical thinking. Jurors paid a living wage for their services. The expense for these jurors would be largely offset by the savings in court time resulting from eliminating repetitive lengthy explanation about law, forensics, etc. Given the complexity of modern society, it is highly unlikely that any of the jurors in a given trial understand the issues or the evidence. Thus, all too often the result hangs on the degree of charisma exhibited by the defendant, plaintiff (in civil cases) and lawyers on both sides.

We have yet to see where Pres. Obama lands in regards to the positioning of government power used against the people.

Actually, he is pretty open about his opinions in The Audacity of Hope (which I highly recommend -- he is a good thinker and presents his case well). What we have yet to see is how much political capital he is willing to spend to change the situation and how successful his attempts (if any) will be. Given the magnitude and immediacy of the other problems facing him, this one may get short shrift.

--Pete

[kandrathe]

Actually, he is pretty open about his opinions in The Audacity of Hope (which I highly recommend -- he is a good thinker and presents his case well). What we have yet to see is how much political capital he is willing to spend to change the situation and how successful his attempts (if any) will be. Given the magnitude and immediacy of the other problems facing him, this one may get short shrift.

I sent the White house a letter today pretty much summing up what I've said here, specifically please look into the Troy Davis case, and more generally I believe we need to roll back some of the broad brush bad justice reforms from the past decades which are sweeping up young black men into prison.

[kandrathe]

I maybe am misunderstanding your point. Are you saying you think people who say no death penalty no matter what should be on a jury deciding a death penalty case? That doesn´t seem very reasonable - of course the accused will not get the death penalty which requires a unanimous vote in most (all?) states. Like Pete said the possibility of the death penalty is not up to the jury to decide - it´s up to the legislative branch. "Jury of your peers" is not possible in this case. So what do you propose? What about life imprisonment - some people object to that as well? Ultimately you need a jury to decide what follows the laws that are in existence at the time. If someone says they can´t do that, then no, they should not be on a jury. This probably is a straw-man argument and you mean something more nuanced; I´m just missing what.

No. I'm just speaking about a statistical sample of jurors. Say they represent a continuum from harsh to lenient. If all death penalty opponents are also lenient jurors, then if you remove them, the juror pool has been skewed toward harsh.

So, it would need to be statistically shown that a large portion of anti-death penalty people were also lenient as jurors. Intuitively, it makes sense.

Here is one article. Summarizing the salient points;

Reid Haste of the University of Colorado has published an excellent book on jury research, entitled Inside the Juror: The Psychology of Juror Decision-Making (Cambridge University Press, 1993). Extensive studies by a wide range of social scientists and psychologists, and Haste's own research, support the following statistically significant conclusions about death-qualified jurors.

1) Witness Credibility -- Death-qualified jurors rate police, prosecutors, and prosecution witnesses as significantly more credible than do jurors who oppose the death penalty.
2) Inferences & Assumptions -- Statistics have found that jurors who support the death penalty are more likely to accept the prosecution's version of events rather than the defense version when ambiguities exist or when there is incomplete evidence.
3) Standard-Of-Proof Threshold -- It has been found that the jurors' application of the judges' instructions on the "reasonable doubt” standard of proof is influenced by the jurors' attitudes toward the death penalty.
4) Willingness To Convict -- Every juror study has found that jurors who did not oppose the death penalty were more likely to convict than were jurors who did oppose the death penalty.
5) Regret For Wrongful Conviction -- Death-qualified jurors show significantly less sympathy to the defendant then do those who oppose the death penalty.

As for a single anti-death penalty hold out on the jury. I would give sentencing back to the judges. Use juries to determine guilt or innocence, but not to determine the punishment. If the prosecution is seeking the death penalty, then I believe there needs to be incontrovertible evidence of guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt". The jury shouldn't have the bear the responsibility of making life and death decisions. I would also remove all the "mandatory minimum sentencing" restraints on judges. Give back the judicial power to the judiciary. Here is an article from 10 years ago that discusses another major issue of injustice in the court system, that of inadequate representation.

Things such as the following excerpt are chilling, considering that we are giving the State to power to kill its citizens;

In Houston, Texas, the death penalty capital of the country, attorney Ron Mock has represented about 10% of the people the county has sent to death row, probably more than any other defense attorney in Texas. Mock starts each day not as a member of the bar, but at the bar he owns in downtown Houston, Buster's Drinkery. [27] Of his 15 capital clients, 12 ended up on death row, including Gary Graham, a 17-year-old who was convicted largely on the basis of a single eyewitness and no physical evidence. Mock's investigator, Merv West, said Mock discouraged him from working hard on the case: "I remember that from the first Ron Mock insinuated that Gary was guilty, and that definitely affected my investigation. Since we both assumed Gary was guilty, I decided not to waste time trying to substantiate his alibi. . . ." [28] By taking a large number of cases, Mock has consistently been a leader in receiving the most money among court-appointed attorneys in Houston.

We assume that death penalty cases are thorough, but I believe quite the opposite is true. If my State had the DP, due to this kind of sloppiness, I would be against it until it could be fairly administered and only for those cases that are particularly heinous and the proof is overwhelming.

Then again, as I read through some of the cases I'm reminded of that Clint Eastwood western, "The Unforgiven" -- "We've all got it coming." Meaning, that while some of the people were wrongly convicted, that doesn't necessarily mean that some didn't deserve the sentence for some other crimes they committed and weren't prosecuted. Some are entirely innocent however.

[Taem]

Like I said earlier in this post, that a person can save themselves most of this agony by disassociating (if possible) with anyone or anyplace likely to attract police attention.

*Amen* to that brother! As soon as my wife became pregnant, we stopped hanging out with people we deemed to be of bad or destructive behavior, more out of respect for the sanctity of our unborn child. And after our kid was born, we never re-associated with these individuals nor maintained communication with them either. This obviously will not work for everyone for all sorts of reasons, nonetheless it is the best advise to give a good person hanging out with a bad crowd.

[Chesspiece_face]

I maybe am misunderstanding your point. Are you saying you think people who say no death penalty no matter what should be on a jury deciding a death penalty case?

I believe it's more an issue of how you ask the question. Anyone who has done research or formulated a survey understands you can modify the results by how you word the question. If you ask someone "would you be willing *insert action here*" you will most likely get a good bit of people who respond 'No' and a good bit of people who respond 'Hell Yes!'. Kandrathe's point is just that the wording of the question self selects for people who may be more interested in casting judgement than justice.

[kandrathe]

I believe it's more an issue of how you ask the question. Anyone who has done research or formulated a survey understands you can modify the results by how you word the question. If you ask someone "would you be willing *insert action here*" you will most likely get a good bit of people who respond 'No' and a good bit of people who respond 'Hell Yes!'. Kandrathe's point is just that the wording of the question self selects for people who may be more interested in casting judgment than justice.

Here is the California questionnaire, with the DP questions at the end of the document.

[librarian]

Heiho,

...As soon as my wife became pregnant, we stopped hanging out with people we deemed to be of bad or destructive behavior ... And after our kid was born, we never re-associated with these individuals nor maintained communication with them either.

uh, I don't argue your right to hang out with whomever you want, but if you start thinking along those lines once you come very close to 'scissors in your head'.
Many civic right movements here have to face the fact that public demos et al are also attended by extreme groups from right to left, just to get attention to their individual goals in a communitarian (hah!) context. So avoiding engagement for Civic Rights won't get you in trouble for being at the same happening like those extremists.
This also applies to internet censorship, which is discussed pro with the mighty hammers of Terrorism, Child Pr0n and General Violence, and consecutively if you're against the censorship you're nearly treated as Terrorist, Child Molester and/or Berzerk Killer, depending on what is most prominent in News right now and then.

More on topic, if someone actually wants to do something about Troy Davis, check out amnesty international
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/...cx&action=11448

[kandrathe]

More on topic, if someone actually wants to do something about Troy Davis, check out amnesty international
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/...cx&action=11448

Yup. Member since 1981, when I was a founding member of a peace through non-violence group on campus. It was in direct opposition to the semi-violent, annoying, confrontational protest movement that we started the group. Our approach was to engage in dialog with our elected officials, rather than spit on them or cover them with red paint. Of coarse, the progressive (protesting) student organization called the PSO was violently opposed to our non-violent approach so they spit on us, and covered us with red paint too. I was accused of being a CIA or FBI plant more times than I can count.

My issue with the form letter is that it usually gets immediately placed in the circular file by staffers, and if you are lucky you get a "me too" tally mark on a sheet of paper. If you want to write a letter, my advice is that you should take the time to write it in your own words and express your own heart felt opinions. Then, it still might end up in the circular file.

[librarian]

Heiho,

there are many ways ...
http://www.musicforhumanrights.org/news/ri...rter-troy-davis

[Occhidiangela]

Well, you know, eggs and omelettes and what have you. Can't run a justice system without occasionally framing a minority and sentencing them to death with little or no recourse or appeal; it would be tremendous waste of taxpayer dollars to do otherwise.

-Jester

You, sir, are a racist.

To K; Too damned bad they didn't apply the sentence within a year, and put him to death forthwith. Now, we have you whinging about it.

Try looking up a few stats on the number of capital crimes.

Then, try looking up the stats on the number of death sentences.

Then, look up the stats on the number of death sentences actually carried out.

This rube wasn't and isn't statistically significant.

Occhi

[Jester]

You, sir, are a racist.

I was so looking forward to how you'd insult me next. As always, you do not disappoint.

This rube wasn't and isn't statistically significant.

As the man said, I do not think it means what you think it means.

-Jester

[Sir_Die_alot]

Hi,
In theory, I agree with you. The problem is that you can never truly be 'damn sure'. For most my life, I've defended the death penalty because some actions are just too evil to allow a lesser punishment. But the large number of cases that have been overturned by advances in forensics, especially DNA, causes me the doubt our system.

Am I willing to put up with an error rate? Yes, both for false positives and false negatives. But the evidence seems to indicate that false positive rate is way too high, even in the judicial system which we have, where the accused have all the rights and the victims have none. So, in practice I have to change my stance. Fix the system, and only after that is done (if ever) use the death penalty. Until then, kill no one on the basis of corrupt cops, incompetent defense attorneys, twelve people too stupid to dodge jury duty, and senile judges.

--Pete

So what you're saying is when such decisions are no longer made by human beings?:lol:

[--Pete]

Hi,

So what you're saying is when such decisions are no longer made by human beings?:lol:

That might have to be the case. Someday we might have a chronoscope that lets us see into the recent past. Then guilt will be determined without question. I'll push that plunger, flip that switch, or pull that lever myself. And sleep like a baby. But 'what if' can keep me awake.

As I said, I had a much higher opinion of the police and judicial system before the evidence piled up. Lock them up for life, and you can at least partially recover from mistakes. Plus, the way we do it, it would probably be cheaper. And, in many cases, killing them fast may be too kind.

So, right now, I see no real upside to the death penalty.

--Pete

[kandrathe]

Someday we might have a chronoscope that lets us see into the recent past.

I've read some science stuff recently that indicates mind reading is not too far off into our future. You will be able to have people prove their innocence, but it can't (ethically) be used to prove guilt.

[--Pete]

Hi,

I've read some science stuff recently that indicates mind reading is not too far off into our future.

Don't kid yourself. In science circles, "20 years" is an euphemism for "the far dim future". I'm guessing the "10 years" mentioned in the article really means "the dim future". Better than "far", I guess, but not within breath holding time.

You will be able to have people prove their innocence, but it can't (ethically) be used to prove guilt.

OK, I'll bite. Why not, ethically?

Besides, technically, neither DNA nor fingerprints as presently done can be used to prove guilt. At most, they can be used to group suspects into "possible" and "not possible". I'd suspect that mind reading is going to be very similar.

--Pete

[kandrathe]

Don't kid yourself. In science circles, "20 years" is an euphemism for "the far dim future". I'm guessing the "10 years" mentioned in the article really means "the dim future". Better than "far", I guess, but not within breath holding time.

It could be something more like they show you a photo of something and can tell if it is likely you are recalling the image, or seeing it for the first time.

OK, I'll bite. Why not, ethically?

Well, technically, you shouldn't be required to incriminate yourself. DNA, Polygraph, fingerprints are comparable physically observable items, but interpreting what is happening inside the brain (depending on how sophisticated) would be like administering a truth drug during interrogation.

Besides, technically, neither DNA nor fingerprints as presently done can be used to prove guilt. At most, they can be used to group suspects into "possible" and "not possible". I'd suspect that mind reading is going to be very similar.

I'd say in the early stages, yes, it will be more like a polygraph.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Well, technically, you shouldn't be required to incriminate yourself. DNA, Polygraph, fingerprints are comparable physically observable items, but interpreting what is happening inside the brain (depending on how sophisticated) would be like administering a truth drug during interrogation.

There is no fundamental ethical reason why one should not be forced to incriminate oneself. When asked, "Did you kill Cock Robin?", you should have to say answer "Yes" or "No". Because the means available at the time to force such an answer were repugnant to the Founding Fathers, they gave us the Fifth Amendment. When the Fifth was ratified, there was damn all in forensic science. Occasional eye witness reports, some 'he said, she said', and the oratorical powers of the attorneys decided cases.

Now, much of jurisprudence depends on forensics. *Your* fingerprints at the scene testify against you. *Your* DNA, ditto. A large amount of physical evidence, nowadays, is really parts of you testifying against you. And in every case, that form of evidence went from inadmissible, to admissible under extreme conditions, to generally and routinely admissible. So much for the Fifth and physical evidence.

Polygraph evidence, OTOH, is not admissible in any US court (AFAIK). Which is a good thing, given the unreliability of polygraph evidence (almost as bad as eye witness, but, as AB says, that's another show). It is, I think, that unreliability, rather than the Fifth, that keeps polygraphs out.

It is not clear, to me, whether brain scans will fall into the physical evidence category. Will they be able to distinguish between real memories and fake memories? Will they be detailed enough to actually describe what happened, or will they be of the "I was there . . . a gun went off . . . he fell down" meaningless generalities. How would we even know? What is a memory, how is it stored? We know that it is not stored in some recorded fashion like a tape. What happens when all or part of a memory is lost? Or can it ever be lost -- maybe it is just the retrieval mechanism that fails. The book is still in the library, but the card is gone from the catalog. And, to carry the analogy one step further, is the book fact or fiction, or some combination of both.

So, while I suspect that memory scans may take a long time to be admitted as evidence (if ever), I suspect the barriers will be technological (as it is with polygraphs) rather than ethical (or legal).

--Pete

[Occhidiangela]

I was so looking forward to how you'd insult me next. As always, you do not disappoint.

-Jester

If you wish to continue to make racist remarks, I'll be happy to keep calling you on it.

It's a two way street, that racist thing, seeing as it's all about assumptions.

Try learning something for a change. Try, perhaps, grasping the subtlety of what I said to you. When you use cliche and ignorant terms, sloppy terms, like "minority" in your ctirique of this case, you betray some seriously biased assumptions.

Racist.

Occhi

[kandrathe]

To K; Too damned bad they didn't apply the sentence within a year, and put him to death forthwith. Now, we have you whinging about it.

For the full hateful empire effect we could bring back crucifixion. Tis the season... We are already well on our way to forced servitude, whatever you want to call it. I used to believe that our justice system was fair, but it is often very flawed. Too flawed to be certain enough to empower the State to begin killing us off.