Texas Trying to Execute Another Innocent Person

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Not proven........that he is innocent and that need to be proven not the other way around once a jury had voted him guilty.

BULLSHIT

BULLSHIT. He is presume guilty not innocent once a jury had found him guilty.

Which is why they need to test the DNA before executing him. You say they have to prove his innocence now, but you want to deny him the means to do so.

Poor guy how many decades and how many appeals did he already had?

One guy just got executed for a murder done over 30 years ago!

Claiming but for one more test of one more bit of evidence is a never ending game and everyone will then die on death row of old age.

This one is worth repeating...

In theory at least I've got nothing against hanging somebody like Manson or Dennis Rader. Here's the problem: I'd want several big changes to the system before I could feel good about capital punishment any more.

1. The criterion of guilt should be "beyond any doubt, whatsoever". "Beyond a reasonable doubt" doesn't cut it for capital punishment; you can't unhang somebody.

2. The person in question would have to represent a continuing danger should he ever get loose again. Certainly somebody who goes on ordering crimes from inside a prison cell would qualify. Society basically has no other way to protect itself at that point.

3. I'd want to get rid of the present adversarial system of justice and replace it with a European style inquisitorial system in which the common incentive for all parties was the determination of facts. NOBODY should ever have any sort of a career/money incentive for sending people to prison. It's bad enough that people sit around in prison because their lawyer simply wasn't as good as some prosecutor on a given day; you sure as hell don't want people dying for that reason.

4. I'd want there to be no societal benefit to keeping the person alive. Cases in which this criteria would prevent hanging somebody would include "Son of Sam" who we probably should want to study more than hang, or Timothy McVeigh who clearly knew more than the public ever was allowed to hear.

They expected DNA testing to eliminate the prime suspect in felony cases in something like one or two percent of cases and many people were in states of shock when that number came back more like 33 or 35%. That translates into some fabulous number of people sitting around in prisons for stuff they don't know anything at all about since the prime suspect in a felony case usually goes to prison. Moreover, in a state like Texas which executes a hundred people a year or whatever it is, that translates into innocent people being executed on a fairly regular basis.

In this you talk a lot of sense. Nobody should be executed if there is unexamined DNA evidence that could exonerate them.

In short, you want him dead now, with evidence to be studied after he gets buried.

I mostly agree with you on this.

I assume that he is guilty period as he was found guilty beyond a reason doubt by a jury of his peers and the verdict was upheld in appeals after appeals over many years at both the state and the Federal level.

I had no problem with looking at new evidence but I am not for allowing prisoners to game the system just to place one delay after another delay in a process that now can take thirty plus years to run it course.

Oh I love the title of this thread the man is innocent and the hell with the jury and the appeals as there might be some evidence that can be check with current DNA technology so he is now innocent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You call wanting DNA examined gaming the system. But, without that key evidence, it doesn't matter what the jury ruled, as they were ruling on partial evidence. In a nation that prides itself on justice, there can be no justice, when all the evidence is not taken into consideration.

Getting on a tangent like this can only kill the thread.

good call, ed.

Texas's percentages tend to favor looking a little deeper. how many guys have they released now, since starting to test for old DNA?

Exactly, I don't know what Bill's problem is. If the evidence confirms his guilt, the State can still execute him, but if it proves he's innocent, they can't bring him back to life.

People with the lust for killing are always outraged that appeals take up time. I am always outraged that appeals are so often treated like a formality, to be gotten out of the way, with as little consideration as possible.

Yeah, I don't want to engage him in a testosterone contest. Just want airing of thoughts.

I am grateful that we don't have the death penalty.

Then they will find some more “new evidence” to game the system some more most likely.

Ted Bundy try to game the system by offering to reveal a whole long lists of victims of his that no one were aware of and the locations of their remains at the last moments before his execution.

The governor at the time refused to allow him such games and his execution went on as schedule.

I favored the death penalty for many years, until I figured out that innocent persons get convicted fairly regularly.