Is DNA the Key to Proving Innocence on Death Row?

[Pengwuino]

"innocent people on death row"

I constantly hear that the greatest argument against capital punishment is "there are people on death row right now who are innocent". Now what is the proof/de-bunking proof to this statement and idea?

 

[JamesU]

There is no proof. people sau that in certain cases there wasn't enough evidence. so when they go on death row they think they're innocent

I don't even agree that we should have a death row

 

[Pengwuino]

Hey that was a quick response for this forum lol.

 

[JamesU]

I used the quick response box below

 

[Pengwuino]

lol still, usually takes an hour or 30 minutes or so to get some responses D:

 

[JamesU]

really? I always get responses within five minutes. cough-they-cough-li-achm!-ke-me-cough!-better[/size]

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Actually, many death sentences that predate DNA technology have been overturned where DNA evidence was later still available for testing. IIRC, one noted study estimated that approximately 1:6 convicts on death row are innocent. It was because of this new information that one of the last acts of the outgoing Governor of Illinois was to revoke all standing death sentences in the state.

 

[Pengwuino]

1 in 6 current inmates or historic though. The claim is that people currently on death row are innocent.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I edited late. ...people on death row now [or a few years ago anyway].

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Keep in mind that in many older cases, and even many new ones, no DNA evidence is available.

 

[Pengwuino]

Well if there's evidence these people are truly innocent, this begs the question as to why there still in prison. I wouldn't think there's many judges out there who see truly conclusive evidence and just throw it aside.

 

[Art]

Perhaps they have the same attitude as Britain's former top judge Lord Demming who stated that it was better for innocent people to remain in prison than to bring the judicial system into question

 

[selfAdjoint]

Well if there's evidence these people are truly innocent, this begs the question as to why there still in prison. I wouldn't think there's many judges out there who see truly conclusive evidence and just throw it aside.

Poor people can't get the expensive lawyers that rich people use to get off. Criminal trials are decided by juries, unless the defendent waives that, and juries are swayed by clever lawyers, including politially ambitious public prosecutors. When the DNA evidence started freeing prisoners in Illinois, a smelly political mess was uncovered. Innocent defendents were railroaded to get an unbroken string of convictions for various prosecuters to further their political careers.

 

[hitssquad]

Prosecutors exploiting, or DPIC exploiting, or both

Innocent defendents were railroaded to get an unbroken string of convictions for various prosecuters to further their political careers.

Convicted by way of an expedient legal strategy, and later released on technical reexamination of that strategy, does not imply one is innocent of a crime. It merely means that that once-expedient legal strategy is no longer sustainable in court. If DNA fingerprinting had been foreseen, perhaps different prosecution strategies would have been pursued and some or all of those convicts would not have been released.

to further their political careers

Social-justice corporations have impetus to further their careers, as well.

 

[Pengwuino]

Poor people can't get the expensive lawyers that rich people use to get off. Criminal trials are decided by juries, unless the defendent waives that, and juries are swayed by clever lawyers, including politially ambitious public prosecutors.

That still doesn't get to the point. If the evidence is there, no matter how expensive or cheap the lawyer is, the evidence still should get to the judge.

 

[Art]

That still doesn't get to the point. If the evidence is there, no matter how expensive or cheap the lawyer is, the evidence still should get to the judge.

Yes, and there shouldn't be any crime so there should be no need for police, courts or prisons. But this is the real world where because something should be doesn't make it so.

 

[Pengwuino]

Yes, and there shouldn't be any crime so there should be no need for police, courts or prisons. But this is the real world where because something should be doesn't make it so.

Well what your basically saying is that since 1 part of the system might be corrupt/inefficient/badly structured, any decision that passes through that system must be null and void? Might as well get rid of all police departments then.

 

[Art]

Well what your basically saying is that since 1 part of the system might be corrupt/inefficient/badly structured, any decision that passes through that system must be null and void? Might as well get rid of all police departments then.

Nope, that is not what I am basically saying - Your extrapolation bears no resemblance to my comment! It's a bit like me saying somebody died in a car crash today which you interpret as a call from me to ban all motorised transport lol

To clarify I was merely pointing out that there was a certain naievete about your post.

 

[Pengwuino]

Naive or not (former), its still ... odd... that once your on death row, you are guaranteed an appeal and if the evidence is so clear as day as these statistics imply... i mean its like looking into the mirror and not seeing yourself...

I think i should have thrown in "appeals are guranteed" to make it seem less naive and more "hey, what the craps going on here".

 

[ray b]

pitts and lee are two the most famous FLA people convicted and sentenced to death
they were convicted because they were blacks and seen as a threat to the locals
for their civil rights activitys
some years after their conviction an other man confesed to the crime
and they were set free leading to a long battle to get compinsation for their years on death row

some reasons for appeal are tecnical
their was they DIDNOT DO IT, WERE NOT THERE, and HAVE NOT ONE THING TO DO WITH THE CRIME, but were convicted anyway

others have been convicted based on dreams, hypnotized wittnesses, and other BS so called evidence
most common gimic is to get an other con to swear the person confested in jail to the crime, most times the other con gets off free for their crimes in return for their BS statements
thats not counting the biased state att trying to run up scores ect

 

[Art]

Penqwuino, I don't know if you are simply trying to peddle right wing views or are genuinely interested in miscarriages of justice but to give you the benefit of the doubt here's some authoritive information for you. The following is an excerpt from Amnesty Int'l's web site.

"In 1996, 16-year-old Shareef Cousin became the youngest person on death row in the USA. The prosecution had hinged on the testimony of an eyewitness who told the jury she was “absolutely positive” that she had seen Cousin commit murder. After Cousin was convicted and sentenced to death, his lawyer saw a copy of the witness’s original police statement in which she said she couldn’t even describe the killer because “it was dark and I didn’t have my contact [lenses].”

In the same Lousiana district where Cousin was charged and convicted, a review of more than 400 homicide cases reveals troubling disparities in application of the death penalty related to race. Between 1990 and 1995, the Orleans Parish District Attorney sought the death penalty in 32 out of 44 cases in which black defendants were charged with the murder of a white person. By comparison, the death penalty was requested in fewer than one-third of cases of blacks accused of murdering blacks and just more than one-fifth of cases involving white defendants and victims. In this period, only blacks were actually sentenced to death."

http://www.amnesty.ca/usa/racism.php

Here's the source link if you want to read more.

 

[Pengwuino]

Well now your trying to peddle, what i suppose is, "left wing" views on race relations when it comes to the death penalty. A dead black person who was innocent is the same as a dead white person who was innocent, and i don't think i attempted to say different. I don't even think i brought in race into this discussion. All that really matters is that if any person has been given the death penalty and there is such glaring facts to his/her innocence, it seems odd that they owuldnt be brought to light in the guaranteed appeal people on death row are granted. I don't know where race comes into this...

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

From what I have heard most of the possibly innocent convicts on death row were convicted quite some time ago and were mainly black convicts that it is assumed racial prejudice played a role in their conviction. I'm sure that in some areas they still have the same problem but I think here in CA it isn't likely that it happens much anymore.
From what I have seen of the way lawyers run their cases any more I don't really have much faith in the system. It's not a terrible system I don't think but I still don't like what I see. A few years ago I was hit by a truck while crossing the crosswalk. It amazed me the lengthes they went to in attempting to discredit me. And this guy hit me with his freakin truck! No shame.

 

[Pengwuino]

And Art, if you are actually willing to bring up race, can you do me a favor and find out the demographics of the people who are actually executed?

Ive seen many sources of information showing a disproportional amount of white people actually are executed. I've also never seen a article against death penalty point out any contradictory information.

 

[Rabid]

Here are a few statistics.

At midyear 2004 there were 4,919 black male prison and jail inmates per 100,000 black males in the United States, compared to 1,717 Hispanic male inmates per 100,000 Hispanic males and 717 white male inmates per 100,000 white males.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/prisons.htm

Number of prisoners on
death row
Year White Black Other



2003 1,878 1,418 78
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/tables/drracetab.htm



Since 1968
Defendant Race # executed % of total executed
Black 278 35%
Hispanic 53 7%
White 455 57%
Other (Asian, Iraqi) 19 2%
http://www.georgetown.edu/users/aaa38/deathrowinmates.htm


African Americans make up the largest racial minority group in the United States, numbering 34.7 million individuals, or 12.3 percent of the U.S. population in 2000.
http://www.prcdc.org/summaries/blacks/blacks.html


Another interesting fact:

More than 5.6 million Americans are in prison or have served time there, according to a new report by the Justice Department released Sunday. That's 1 in 37 adults living in the United States, the highest incarceration level in the world.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0818/p02s01-usju.html

 

[russ_watters]

...one noted study estimated that approximately 1:6 convicts on death row are innocent.

I suspect this is related to what Pengwuino was saying (and the perceived naivety), but that seems like a tautology, or potentially circular reasoning to me: how do you do a study to figure out if people on death row are innocent? What is it based on? Did they actually go back and find new evidence or do new DNA testing? Or do they just conclude based on the evidence presented that the jury was wrong? Or even, as suggested before, do they differentiate between being found innocent and actually being innocent?

1 in 6 seems awfully high, and I'm just wondering how such conclusions are reached. Also, does it differentiate between those who were convicted and those who were executed - 1-in-6 on death row being innocent doesn't imply 1-in-6 who are executed are innocent.

RE: Shareef Cousin - Shareef is no longer on death row, which means he wouldn't be in those 1-in-6 statistics and he spent very little time on death row - his conviction was overturned rather quickly. And there is a big difference between simple "miscarriages of justice" and actual fraud by the prosecution. Frankly, that link, to me, is another example of how politically biased foreign organizations such as Amnesty International are (yes, I'm referring to the current Koran flap). Ten million people starve to death in North Korea, yet Amnesty Intl is generating headlines by attacking the US.

 

[Pengwuino]

I think what they do is take a sampling of people who have gone to jail and then figure out how many of those people were released and then extrapolate it to the entire prison population and then figured the same statistics would be true for death row.

Either that or the took a sampling of people sentenced tod eath row and did roughly the same comparison.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I think Pengwuino is about right. IIRC, a random sample of death row convicts whose convictions predated DNA testing, but where evidence was still available for testing later, were chosen for the study; which I think was done at Princeton. I'll try to find it later if no one else knows about this. The actions of the last Illinois Governer should easily be confirmed. I happened to be in Chicago when he made the announcement that all death sentences would be commuted to life sentences.

 

[Pengwuino]

I wouldn't take some politicians political move as an indication of the inner workings of our judicial system :-/

 

[Art]

And Art, if you are actually willing to bring up race, can you do me a favor and find out the demographics of the people who are actually executed?

Ive seen many sources of information showing a disproportional amount of white people actually are executed. I've also never seen a article against death penalty point out any contradictory information.

Ah, so my first presumption was correct after all but to answer you;
1) No I will not do you a favour... I don't mind infoming you but you can take responsibility for your own education.
2) I did not write the article I only referenced it as a factual souce of information relating to prisoners on death row
3) Please provide a few of "your many sources of information"
4) Actually READ the article I referenced and you will not have to 'think' so much

ps Are you by any chance a fan of Ron Hubbard?