Georgia Executes Davis

[Natasha]

How is that safe guards? That's called a glitch in the Matrix. The innocent or even any remote possibility of being innocent should not be put to death. In case I missed something, you don't come back from that. The guilty walk free because cops don't do their due diligence and defense lawyers are much better at their jobs than prosecutors. Sucks, but that's the way it is.

I'm not going to explain the legal system to you. The fact that Troy Davis had a shit ton of appeals and not one attorney could come up w/ something to get his life spared says more about the shitty attorneys than it does the legal system. The legal system is inherently flawed b/c it puts the decision of guilt or innocence in the hands of 12 people who are only there b/c it's their civic duty.

Is there really an equation between the guilty that walk free and the innocent that are murdered by the State? I don't under stand your point, but they do both represent flaws in the process. But the former does not excuse the latter imo.

Yes, it's quite obvious you don't understand. As I stated in the other thread on this issue, the amount of innocent people in prison (or executed, even) are few and far between. Yes, one is too many (never got through anybody's thick skull even though I repeated it about 2 dozen times in the last thread, so we'll make it rather noticeable this time)...but if you think the number of innocents in jail outweighs the number of guilty that are free, you're kidding yourself.

 

[rback33]

Holy crap. You make that conclusion based solely on a crowd reaction at a debate? I think I felt better about your thought process until you shared that bit of ridiculousness....

 

[Natasha]

What I find so ironic is the fact that the family (white) of the cop killed wanted Davis put down, but they just put down that cocksucker who deserved to die down in Texas (for the hate crime), and the son (black) of the victim in that case said he had better things in his life than to want his father's killer executed.

What was more interesting to me was that the defense attorneys in this case were arguing that the jury composition resulted in an unfair trial yet the majority of the people on the jury were the same race as Mr. Davis. *shrugs*

 

[Minor Axis]

Yes, it's quite obvious you don't understand. As I stated in the other thread on this issue, the amount of innocent people in prison (or executed, even) are few and far between. Yes, one is too many (never got through anybody's thick skull even though I repeated it about 2 dozen times in the last thread, so we'll make it rather noticeable this time)...but if you think the number of innocents in jail outweighs the number of guilty that are free, you're kidding yourself.

How would you summarize the situation? AFU? What would be the solution?

Since we are talking about the U.S. Justice System I invite you to read Newsweek: Jim Webb's Last Crusade (Republican Virginia Senator) his efforts to help fix our system.

There are two types of people in America: those, like Webb, who think the criminal-justice system desperately needs to be fixed, and those who haven’t been paying attention. In 1980, fewer than 500,000 Americans were in prison; today, the number is 2.3 million. To put that statistic in perspective, the median incarceration rate among all countries is 125 prisoners for every 100,000 people. In England, it’s 153; Germany, 89; Japan, a mere 63. In America, it’s 743, by far the highest in the world. Include all the U.S. residents currently on probation or parole, and our country’s correctional population soars to about 7.2 million—roughly one in every 31 Americans. All told, the U.S. incarcerates nearly 25 percent of the world’s prisoners, even though it’s home to only 5 percent of the world’s inhabitants.

The cost of our prison addiction is staggering. In recent years, America’s total criminal-justice tab—state, local, and federal—has ballooned to more than $200 billion a year, draining government resources at the worst possible moment. Meanwhile, millions of men—fathers, brothers, wage earners—have been consigned to a vicious cycle of absence, stigmatization, and recidivism. If you’re black and you haven’t finished high school, you now have a 60 percent chance of going to jail—an experience that will reduce your annual employment by nine weeks and lower your yearly earnings by 40 percent. As Webb likes to put it, “Either we have the most evil people on earth living in the U.S., or we are doing something dramatically wrong in terms of how we approach the issue of criminal justice.”

The answer, of course, is the latter. Americans aren’t 12 times as evil as the Japanese, and they certainly aren’t any more evil than they were in 1980. The truth is that America’s three-decade-long incarceration boom hasn’t “really [been] about increasing crime” at all, as Allen J. Beck of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, recently admitted—it’s been about “how we chose to respond to crime.” In 1986, President Reagan signed a $1.7 billion bill that created mandatory minimum penalties for drug offenses, and “when you increase the likelihood of a person going to prison for a conviction, and then you increase how long you keep them there,” Beck explained, “it has a profound effect.” In this case, Reagan’s legislation, and an epidemic of similar state laws passed around the same time, sparked a 1,200 percent increase in the number of people jailed for drug violations, most of whom have been low-level users with no history of violence or dealing, and most of whom have been black. Today, African-Americans represent 74 percent of those sent to prison for drug possession, even though they make up only 14 percent of users.

 

[retro]

I guess you guys didn't watch the Republican debate and the Tea Party crowd that cheered when Perry spoke of executions in his state. :tooth My mention of Bush was not to link him to the Tea Party but to point out there are those with consciousnesses who see the flaws, and then there are the idiots who blindly trust in the process and let the chips fall where they may despite the evidence that race plays a huge factor in what chance a black man convicted of murder has of getting death as compared to a white man accused of the same crime.

I suppose that you polled everyone there and discussed their political affiliations and asked them whether or not they align themselves with the so-called Tea "party"? Cause unless you did, everything you've said is merely conjecture and proves that you have a negative bias towards the two items and decided to lump them together in some sort of hybrid rhetoric.

 

[rback33]

I suppose that you polled everyone there and discussed their political affiliations and asked them whether or not they align themselves with the so-called Tea "party"? Cause unless you did, everything you've said is merely conjecture and proves that you have a negative bias towards the two items and decided to lump them together in some sort of hybrid rhetoric.

:homo: That sums it up.

 

[Joe the meek]

I'm not going to explain the legal system to you. The fact that Troy Davis had a shit ton of appeals and not one attorney could come up w/ something to get his life spared says more about the shitty attorneys than it does the legal system. The legal system is inherently flawed b/c it puts the decision of guilt or innocence in the hands of 12 people who are only there b/c it's their civic duty.

The fact is lawyers are like any other people that have professions or careers. You have people that are good at what they do, and you have people that are below average at what they do but muddle by. Talk to any decent lawyer and they will tell you that to be at the point of execution, you must have an idiot for a lawyer.

 

[Minor Axis]

I suppose that you polled everyone there and discussed their political affiliations and asked them whether or not they align themselves with the so-called Tea "party"? Cause unless you did, everything you've said is merely conjecture and proves that you have a negative bias towards the two items and decided to lump them together in some sort of hybrid rhetoric.

Actually commentators mentioned a strong Tea Party showing at this debate.

 

[Alien Allen]

Minor I am a pretty damn un trusting person. I am suspicious of anything I see so I do not take a lot on face value.

So I will say this regarding any public event that is political

BOTH sides CAN and HAVE planted people at events to make the other side look bad.

I am NOT saying that was what happened at that debate. But it is plausible.

May I ask have you ever gone to a Tea Party event? If not I would urge you to do so an mingle and listen. I have done that for candidates of both parties. I get a kick out of what I hear.

I used to also sit on the opponents side when my oldest daughter played indoor soccer which can be pretty rugged. I would laugh my ass off at how pissed of parents would get. I was like that too originally but after several years I did mellow. Sorry to hijack with that little tidbit

 

[BadBoy]

I'm not going to explain the legal system to you. The fact that Troy Davis had a shit ton of appeals and not one attorney could come up w/ something to get his life spared says more about the shitty attorneys than it does the legal system. The legal system is inherently flawed b/c it puts the decision of guilt or innocence in the hands of 12 people who are only there b/c it's their civic duty.



Yes, it's quite obvious you don't understand. As I stated in the other thread on this issue, the amount of innocent people in prison (or executed, even) are few and far between. Yes, one is too many (never got through anybody's thick skull even though I repeated it about 2 dozen times in the last thread, so we'll make it rather noticeable this time)...but if you think the number of innocents in jail outweighs the number of guilty that are free, you're kidding yourself.

I don't need the legal system "explained" to me. A judge can over turn any verdict but rarely, if ever, does. I would presume that of all the people in that courtroom, he/she would be the one to solely make the call whether to let the verdict stand or not.

The legal system is flawed because humans are flawed. We allow emotion to control our thoughts and actions. Perhaps we could use computers to solve this issue much like the college football rankings. People think they don't work because they allow their emotion to control their judgement.

 

[Guyzerr]

The legal system is flawed because humans are flawed. We allow emotion to control our thoughts and actions. Perhaps we could use computers to solve this issue much like the college football rankings. People think they don't work because they allow their emotion to control their judgement.

I love listening to jurors after a guilty verdict is handed down especially when they say things like...

) You could see the guilt in his eyes.
) You can tell there was something evil about him when he looked at you.
) You could feel the evil in the air.


Na............ it never happens.

 

[Natasha]

The legal system is flawed because humans are flawed.

Congratulations...this is exactly what I said.

 

[All Else Failed]

Have you guys even looked into this case

because all the evidence points towards Davis being guilty

 

[All Else Failed]

What was more interesting to me was that the defense attorneys in this case were arguing that the jury composition resulted in an unfair trial yet the majority of the people on the jury were the same race as Mr. Davis. *shrugs*

What is interesting to me is that the ballistics evidence alone is enough to fry him

 

[Natasha]

Have you guys even looked into this case

because all the evidence points towards Davis being guilty

I already admitted that I haven't looked into it at depth. But I have a HUGE problem w/ the majority of the witnesses recanting.

I'm not sure if I believe he was guilty or not. That 7 of the 9 witnesses recanted is concerning to say the least. 1 or 2 I might shrug off...but the vast majority??? I am not one that typically believes convicted people are innocent...there are way too many safeguards built into our legal system. I guess I'd have to research the case more to make an informed decision. I'm just not sure we got it right on this one.

 

[Natasha]

Wait a minute...this:

No murder weapon – neither the gun owned by Cole nor that said to be owned by Davis – was ever recovered.[SUP][29][/SUP] A ballistics expert testified that the .38 caliber bullet that killed MacPhail could have been fired from the same gun that wounded Cooper at the Cloverdale pool party, though he admitted doubt about this. However, he stated he was confident that .38 casings found at Cloverdale matched one allegedly later found by a homeless man near the scene of MacPhail's shooting.[SUP][27][/SUP][SUP][31][/SUP][SUP][32][/SUP]

...is the ballistics you're referring to??? Hardly a smoking gun, IMO. I don't know whether the guy was guilty or not...but w/ what has been presented so far, I'm just not concerned 100% and, for someone to get the death penalty, I don't think there should be any doubts. Obviously there weren't in the minds of the 12 jurors and the appeals courts afterwards...and they know a lot more than we do.

 

[BleedingBull]

I havent heard of this guy or his case, but as for the death penalty the fact so many have been found innocent years later with technology etc is sad as hell, but then I am on the fence with it with brutal cases that have no doubt of guilt or remorse.

 

[Guyzerr]

I already admitted that I haven't looked into it at depth. But I have a HUGE problem w/ the majority of the witnesses recanting.

That sums up pretty much how I feel. I would have liked the courts to get to the bottom of that issue and I wonder why his lawyers were never successful in having that done.

 

[All Else Failed]

Wait a minute...this:



...is the ballistics you're referring to??? Hardly a smoking gun, IMO. I don't know whether the guy was guilty or not...but w/ what has been presented so far, I'm just not concerned 100% and, for someone to get the death penalty, I don't think there should be any doubts. Obviously there weren't in the minds of the 12 jurors and the appeals courts afterwards...and they know a lot more than we do.

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.

 

[Natasha]

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.

So you don't see or are just ignoring the fact that the ballistics simply match and have in no way been physically tied to him???