"Can you stomach this?" - last meals of executed convicts later found innocent

Interesting: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...d-crimes-did-commit.html?ICO=most_read_module

Including one there that pretty much makes Rick Perry a bona fide murderer if true.

Lone Star Dick Perry? An interesting documentary was made about him & his case & imprisonment.

Eh, they don't give DP to people that don't have a prior criminal record. If they didn't commit the murder, the world was done a favor by getting rid of them anyways.

Jesus, you're a simpleton.

The website is misleading.

None of the people that I read about there were "proven innocent".

At best for each of them, there are questions (largely procedural) about the evidence that one MIGHT (and that is a huge MIGHT) have led a jury to deciding there was not "beyond a reasonable doubt" of their guilt.

But hardly "proven innocent".

Just because the prosecution did not prove their case beyond a REASONABLE doubt (which doesn't mean "ANY" doubt) does not mean the accused did not commit the crime.

Lets look in more detail at least at four of the five pillars of society mentioned here.

Cantu- is reportedly "presumed innocent" because two "witnesses" claim he was not involved in the crime.

These "witnesses" came forward....12 years later.

Claude Jones- also committed TWO other armed robberies after the alleged murder but before being capture.

Hardly the actions of a person one would "presume innocent".

L. Jones- said he was coerced into confessing (of course he was). No evidence is mentioned that supports his claim of coercion.

Note, L. Jones in his appeals to the Supreme Court did not use his supposed innocence as the basis of his appeal but the claim that the death penalty was "cruel & unusual" punishment.

Spence- the only information presented for him being "presumed innocent" of the torture murders of three teenagers is that he "maintained his innocence right up to the end" (of course he did).

I won't get into the details about the man who torched his daughters, but we've debated it before various places and there was far more evidence against him than the arson investigators report.

I haven't seen a truly convincing "innocent man executed" case yet. When you dig into it, the "evidence" of their innocence is less than persuasive.

It's always geared to trying to move you from "beyond a reasonable doubt X is guilty" to "pretty certain X is guilty," at which point innocence is proclaimed.

It is simple because it is true. I think giving people years in prison is a failed model that has too much of a repeated criminal behavior rate. I think we need to go back to the old style Gaol. You were going to be held there only until court was in session. Then your were going to be A. set loose a free man B. receive some sort of physical punishment or C. Be hanged. We could end the prison overcrowding rather quickly and put the money towards decent people who need it.

Sadly, we already knew that Texas routinely executes innocent people just like we already knew politicians like Perry refuse to halt the process, even when serious questions are brought up, simply because he's afraid of not looking tough enough. In short, like so many other insecure Texans he is just a shallow little shell of a man desperately trying to pretend he's macho and hyper masculine.

Such over compensation and shallow posturing really is one of the defining characteristics of Texan culture. Yeah, I said it.

What planet are you from?

Dammit! I initially thought the OP mentioned Lone Star Michael Perry the killer. It's Lone Star Rick Perry the d00sh! My bad

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_Abyss_(film)

Except you have no evidence of that from an unbiased source.

Amnesty International? IIRC, this is the same organization that bitched and moaned when an occasional U.S. bomb killed three civilians in Iraq.....but barely mentioned Iraqis (before and after Hussein) killing hundreds of thousands of their own people.

Despite the title and part of its history, it is not a credible organization.

This is true.

Nevertheless, when you have enough cases where there is some doubt on the conviction, doesn't it become pretty much a statistical certainty, sooner or later, that at least one of them probably was innocent?

So even though it cannot be maintained with any kind of certainty that the American justice system has executed an innocent person in modern times in any given case, as a general principle based on probabilities, that is extremely likely.

Denying it because there is doubt about it in any given case seems rather disingenuous to me.

Therefore, it seems to me that there are only two intellectually honest positions:

1) Admit that, in all likelihood, the death penalty does occasionally result in the death of a person who was not guilty of the crime for which they were condemned, but accept that as a "lesser of two evils" option (the other, worse "evil" being that there would probably be more deaths, in prison or elsewhere, if the death penalty wasn't practiced than the number of executions of people not guilty of the crime of which they were convicted).

2) Disapprove of the death penalty on the grounds that it is virtually certain, in some cases, to result in the death of a person who is not guilty of the crime of which they were convicted.

Maintaing the position that "the death penalty never results in an innocent person being convicted" when there are enough cases where that is undeniably at least a possibility, simply because none of them are proven to be such cases, does not seem to be a logical conclusion.

Uh, no, we don't know that. In fact, we know it is not true.

It is extremely likely that Texas has executed someone who was innocent of the crime of which they were convicted, perhaps more than once. That, to me, is sufficient justification to change the system radically.

Nevertheless, it is by no means "routine." You are simply as credible as always with this statement, meaning: not at all.

Bullshit. Amnesty International were consistent in their criticism of Saddam Hussein. However they also focus attention on issues they believe they can have the most influence on.

Well all these inmates had to do was order a "to go" plate instead of dining in.

Translation:

Amnesty International heaps criticism on nations and people (like the U.S.) that they know actually give a damn about morality while bothering little with governments that deal with out wholesale slaughter because they don't care anyway.

It never ceases to amaze me that, seemingly no matter what, some people just won't concede the possibility that innocent people have been put to death by the state. And more often than not, these same people who put complete trust in the state's ability to deal out death and judgement often criticize the government for being incompetent in areas that don't deal with life and death, which makes one wonder how they suddenly are competent when it does deal with life and death, or accuse the government of having malicious intent, like with the Fast and Furious and other gunrunning programs, even though this is the same justice department we're talking about here.

Order something that will be certain to make you sick, something you're allergic to or something. Then you get put in the hospital, execution delayed because killing a sick man is not good, wait til he gets better again. Repeat the process.

Doesn't work quite that way. Prison authorities have rushed inmates who attempted suicide on the day of their execution to the hospital to revive them and then promptly rushed them back in time for their scheduled execution after being revived.

I concede that now and then a person innocent of the crime they have been convicted of has been executed.

But.

There are very few executions in the modern U.S. that are not for multiple killings or for people who are known to have killed before.

So though a person may have "reasonable doubt" for the crime they are actually executed for, most everyone of those have a history of violence and even murder.

I can't think of a single proven instance that someone was executed who was not clearly guilty of violent crimes of some nature.

I can't look at the list right now at work, but I'm sure Cameron Todd Willingham is on it and anybody who thinks he should have been put to death for what happened to his daughters is a sick sick person. There is no convincing evidence that an arson actually happened that day let alone that he set it. The evidence at his trial was flimsy at best and once actual scientists got a hold of it, even that fell apart. Look no further than Rick Perry killing the panel investigating his case after his execution as to what really went on.

And while some people seem to think killing an innocent every now and then is just peachy, I hold that it is better to let 10 guilty men go free than to wrongly execute 1 innocent man.

That's why Krypton has NO Death Penalty!

What if the 10 guilty men who were let to go free went on to kill 2 innocent men? Or more?

(And no, I'm not arguing in favor of the death penalty. In fact, I oppose it. I just find this particular argument for opposing it to be silly.)

Then they killed those people, and not the state in the name of justice and as a representative of all citizens.

Nope. You don't seem like someone who has paid any attention to what they say or do.

It'd be a bigger favour if they got rid of people as stupid as you.

You don't understand how our government works. A jury of citizens, not the government, decides guilt, and a Jury decides on the death penalty, not the government.

Wow, you're both wrong and clueless as the same time. I guess there is no surprise there.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...about-how-texas-executed-an-innocent-man.html

There are numerous cases where Texas executed innocent men. That's one of the dangers of executing people by the dozen. And, yes, there is abundant evidence with Rick Perry saying it himself saying he is afraid to halt any execute because he is afraid it will make him look weak. That's just a fact, old timer, even if you're too clueless and patrisan to admit it.

I guess there is nothing new there though.